Very Nice

by Marcy Dermansky

  She did not try to deny it.

  She looked over her shoulder, searching for the waiter. “I hope the food comes soon,” she said. “I’m starving. It’s been a long day.”

  I nodded.

  I waited.

  “It’s from a long, long time ago,” she said. “I had an outbreak a few weeks back, when I was working a lot—you remember that big Texas, Los Angeles, Hawaii trip I took. I was away. I would have never…” Mandy’s voice faded.

  “Had sex with me,” I said, finishing her sentence.

  Mandy nodded.

  “You should have told me.”

  “Of course,” Mandy said. “I should have. I would have. I was away. I should have told you, but I was away. I thought you were safe.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  I understood her reasoning, honestly. I would not have wanted to tell her, either. I also did not like the restaurant Mandy had chosen. The music, like always, was too loud. I did not like to eat after eight o’clock. I did not like living in Tribeca. I was fifty-six years old. I had made a serious mistake. Rebecca did not even warn me. She did not try to stop me from leaving her. She should have stopped me. She could have. Even at the time, I knew that I wanted her to stop me. It was not that I no longer wanted to have sex with my wife. She had lost interest in me, turning me away, again and again, until it was too humiliating to even try.

  “It may not feel this way right now,” Mandy said, “but it’s not a big deal. You got antiviral drugs, right?”

  I nodded.

  “It clears quickly. You might never even have another outbreak. Really.”

  “I had a fever.”

  “The fever,” Mandy said, remembering. “When you couldn’t find the thermometer. That was a while ago, Jonathan. I wish you had talked to me.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “This is nothing,” Mandy said. “Really.”

  She reached for my hands across the table. I let her hold them. I wanted her to convince me. We had gone to Paris together. It had been the most romantic trip of my life. It had felt like a honeymoon. Becca and I had never taken one. I had married Becca and started my job the next week. Becca was already pregnant. She said she did not want the fuss.

  Twenty years later, I had planned us a trip to Paris. She stayed home with our sick dog. I had already been cheating then. For a while even, almost six months. Whenever Mandy flew into New York.

  And so, I took Mandy to Paris. We took long walks along the Seine, holding hands, walks that I had planned for me and Becca. We ate scrumptious four-course meals at five-star restaurants. We made love in a wonderful hotel bed. Mandy made love to me with such care and attention. She did things to me with her tongue.

  What was supposed to be a simple affair changed in Paris. It had been a mistake to take her there. I knew it was wrong to take her on a trip that I had planned for Rebecca. It was the best trip of my life.

  When I came home, Posey was dead.

  Becca looked at me as if I were dead.

  I told her about Mandy.

  It was not a marriage that could be repaired. At least, that was what I thought at the time. Mandy was surprised but happy when I asked if I could stay with her in her apartment. It was too small for us, of course, but I liked it. It was like I was young again, we were playing house. She told me that she had talked to her friends. She said that there was consensus. I would never leave my wife. Husbands never left their wives. But there I was.

  “Here I am,” I said. “With you.”

  She was elated.

  Mandy thought it was funny, too, playing house in her little apartment. She even tried to cook me a soufflé. We had eaten soufflés in Paris.

  “Don’t distract me,” she said, laughing. “I don’t want to mess this up.”

  I distracted her. She put the soufflé in the oven and I fucked her hard, her round butt cheeks facing out to me, holding on to the counter. This was nothing like married sex with Becca. This was like no other sex I had had before. The soufflé fell, but we ate it anyway. I never cared about the food.

  It was the sex, that was her appeal. And maybe those girlish bangs. But at night, after sex, after a long day at the office, and getting expertly taken care of, her smooth soft hands on my member, I found myself thinking of Becca, alone in our bed, without her dog, her daughter away at college. Alone in our big, beautiful house. My sad and beautiful wife.

  I thought about Becca.

  I missed her, every day. I had been one selfish son of a bitch. I had never valued her, but she had never valued me. I knew that our marriage had problems. That was why I had planned that trip to Paris. That was me, trying. The affair itself made sense to me. Becca did not want to have sex. I found someone else to relieve her of that particular duty. The pressure had been removed.

  “Jonathan?” Mandy said, reminding me that I was in a loud and trendy restaurant in Tribeca.

  She was still holding my hands across the table.

  I gave Mandy a pained smile. I knew what I had to say, but I did not have the words. I had seen my wife on a beach with that man. His name was Zahid Azzam, the name of either a superhero or terrorist. Both. My daughter said he was a famous writer.

  The food came.

  Mandy looked at me. She drank her martini in two large gulps. A single tear slowly made its way down her pretty face. I watched it fall. I watched as Mandy finished her cheeseburger, somehow she was still able to eat, and then we went back to her small apartment and I changed into my pajamas and Mandy took off her clothes. She had an incredible body. Small breasts. A minuscule patch of blond pubic hair. She got waxed down there, something that bewildered me at first, but I liked it, her almost hairless vagina. That haircut. She was exactly the kind of girl I used to masturbate to, only she was real. She was mine. I stared at her now, naked. My penis was flaccid.

  “It’s just a virus,” Mandy said. “It goes away. I don’t even think about it. It doesn’t change a thing. It doesn’t have to.”

  She slid her hand onto my dick. I could feel my penis respond. I disengaged her hand. I looked at Mandy’s hairless pussy and I wondered how I would ever be able to put my lips there again.

  I was old-fashioned, I guessed. I was a fool.

  “This is not going to work,” I said.

  “Then you should go,” Mandy said. “Right now. You should leave right now. Just get out.”

  She put on an oversized white T-shirt that she liked to sleep in.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said. “Why bother? You should leave.”

  She was right, of course. Mandy was as sharp as a pistol. Smart. Confident. Drop-dead gorgeous. If I did not want to sleep with her, we had nothing. I already had a daughter.

  Becca

  Words. Sometimes they are unnecessary. I watched my daughter take a breath and then hug Zahid. I watched the bravery of this act, the conscious choice she seemed to be making, and I understood that what I had suspected the very first time she had started talking about her writing professor was correct.

  I had known from the start that Rachel had feelings for him and I had known that this would be a problem. This was why I had been keeping our relationship a secret. This was why when Zahid said he wanted to make love in a bed, I took him to a hotel. And there was Jonathan, too. I did not particularly want him to know my business, but it was Rachel that I was worried about.

  I also wanted to keep Zahid private for as long as I could. I didn’t want to test our relationship with exposure to the world. I did not want to explain myself to the few friends I had left. I did not want for anyone to say, “You go, girl” or any other insipid comment of the like. I wanted Zahid just for me. I did not want Zahid to get a job. He could stay upstairs; he could write. We did not want for money. What we had was perfect.
<
br />   I do not use that word lightly.

  It was perfect.

  I knew already, had known after Jonathan called in the middle of the night, that this sweet state of existence was over already. So fast. He might have come to the house, for all I knew. He still had a key. I had not changed the locks. I would have been in New Haven, making love in a king-sized bed. But I would hear from him again.

  It was not enough for him to leave me for a pilot, to desert me when I was grieving for my dog, my sweet Posey. He wanted to come home. He wanted to talk. I wanted to kill him.

  And now this.

  Rachel had feelings for Zahid. This was bad enough, of course, but when I saw Zahid tense, I realized that there was more to it. Something else. Something wrong. Something way off. Zahid could have played it off as if it were nothing, a hug from my lovestruck, college-aged daughter. He could have returned the hug and said, “Thank you!”

  And he didn’t.

  He stiffened like a board. His arms hung at his sides. Hug her back, I thought, do this for my daughter, don’t embarrass her, but Zahid did not move. Rachel looked like she had been slapped. She looked like she had been rejected, which, of course, she had been. Just like that, she was out the door. I watched her from the front window. She was actually running from the house. My sweet girl.

  My very first suspicion, before we had even met, had been that there was something going on between Rachel and the writing professor, and look what I had done. I had brought him into our home. I had not taken him into my bed, but that was semantics. Back at college, he might have been my daughter’s lover for all I knew. It was the stuff of Lifetime movies, mother and daughter, sleeping with the same man. I did not know if Rachel would forgive me if she were ever to find out. She would have to, wouldn’t she? I was her mother. Look at what I was risking. Was he worth it? Who was this man? I did not even like his novel, for Christ’s sake.

  “Zahid?” I said.

  I wished he could have just stayed upstairs. One minute longer and we would have been alone in the house. I had not trained him properly. I had not set down the rules, because I’d thought they were understood. It was not as simple as stay away from my daughter, we ate meals together after all, but that was what I wanted. For Zahid Azzam to stay away from my daughter.

  I was responsible for the hurt on my sweet girl’s face.

  I looked out the window again. Rachel was out of sight. I had a vision of Theo Thornton standing there, holding a gun. There was no one. It was a bright, clear summer day.

  “Morning, Becca,” Zahid said.

  I thought one of us might make a move to kiss the other. A peck on the cheek, that would not be abnormal. We didn’t. We did not move.

  “Did you say there was coffee?” Zahid asked.

  It was a smart move, bringing us back to normal. The ordinary. I nodded. “Rachel made a pot,” I said, retreating back into the kitchen. I said her name as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about my having a daughter named Rachel. I poured Zahid a cup. I gave him the last of the milk. I would have to go to the grocery store. I was not sure how it had happened, but we were out of almost everything. That was not like me. I worried that I was not like me.

  “What was that about?” I asked Zahid, offhand, as if his answer were of no importance to me.

  Zahid shrugged.

  “Kids today,” he said. “Who knows what they are thinking?”

  I laughed, a small fake laugh.

  Zahid had dodged the question. He knew just what I meant. Would I let him get away with it? Would I? What was I supposed to do? I did not have to figure everything out now. I could leave everything left unsaid. I did not know what else to do. We had never had a conversation about our relationship. I had not set up boundaries. This was my fault. After our night in the hotel, I’d understood that things were starting to change and I wanted them to change. I liked having sex in a bed, waking up together. I liked taking a shower together, rubbing soap over his naked body. I wanted more and it seemed like Zahid did as well.

  But I had not known that it would be today that we would have this conversation. I wanted more time. We had only had a few weeks. Not enough. Not fair. I was like a child. My relationship with my daughter was at stake. I was disgusted with myself. I just wanted more time. Me and Zahid, safe in our bubble, making love. I looked at Zahid, wondering how to begin.

  Zahid held his fingers up to his lips, indicating that I should not speak. It was such a relief.

  We would not talk.

  But had he not just told Rachel that he had gotten a job in the middle of America? Was he leaving at the end of the summer? Was that it? No discussion required. It was just a summer fling. That made sense, that would be the most sensible path for this to take, but that was not what I wanted.

  And had I not heard Rachel open the door to my room the night before? I had been sleeping, but I heard the door open. Did I imagine that or was she checking on me? Was she making sure that I was sleeping alone? Was that it? I reached over for Posey, lying beside me, and fell back asleep.

  “I want to write,” Zahid said. “If that is all right with you. And then, we can swim our laps? I want to practice my flip turn. Does that sound like a plan? We will go swimming in the afternoon?”

  It was a question. It translated into: Will we make love in the afternoon after we go swimming? Is everything okay?

  We would. It was. It was a good plan, fine with me. Here on in, I would be more careful. I would dead-bolt the door. I would call a locksmith and get the locks changed. We could pretend that the hug had never happened.

  “That’s fine. It sounds like a plan to me. I have to buy groceries,” I said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Zahid asked.

  I shook my head, without thinking. Of course I would not take Zahid with me to Whole Foods or to the local market. I might run into someone. I hated that about my small town, but there it was. I knew a lot of people. I had taught almost everyone’s children.

  But then, I thought, perhaps it would be nice. To have his company. To do something as ordinary as go to a supermarket together.

  “You should write,” I said. “It’s fine.”

  Zahid shook his head. He put his coffee cup in the sink. He patted Posey on the head.

  “I’ll come,” he said.

  How did he know?

  How did he know how much it would please me? Of course, it was not the words. It was the fact that he would rather go with me to the supermarket than work on his novel. He did not want to leave me, or be left alone. At the hotel in New Haven, turning in the key card, for a split second I worried that he might be using me. I was vulnerable. I realized that. I realized that if I had decided to return the calls of any of my friends who had reached out to me, they might not have encouraged this sexual escapade. They might have asked if I was charging Zahid rent.

  * * *

  —

  Zahid pushed the cart at the Stop & Shop.

  “This store is so big,” he said. “And so empty. It’s a little bit creepy. And cold. Are you cold?”

  It was freezing cold.

  I’d known to bring a sweater, but I had not warned Zahid. I was nervous. This was not the conversation we desperately needed to have, but it was something. An outing. I was well aware of the fact that I had taken him to a supermarket I normally avoided; the produce was bad and the fluorescent lights hurt my eyes. Still. The farmers’ market was the next day and I could wait to get good produce and flowers. I was only going to get the basics. Milk and sliced turkey and paper towels and chocolate chip cookies, a pint of raspberries. Avocados. Things for Rachel. Food for dinner.

  “Do you want anything?” I asked him.

  Zahid’s face was blank. It was as if he had never been in a supermarket before. He was shivering. We had made a mis
take, I supposed, but this was a small one.

  “Ice cream?” he said.

  He seemed shy.

  “Of course,” I said.

  We stood next to the freezer display. There was Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers and Friendly’s and an overpriced gelato from Brooklyn. There were ice cream bars. There was frozen yogurt. There was Tofutti. I was not sure what Zahid liked. Usually, in the summer, I did not keep ice cream in the house. If I wanted any, I would go out for it. Not once this summer, however, had I gone out for ice cream with Rachel.

  “Ben & Jerry’s?” Zahid said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  I stood next to him, contemplating the flavors. I slid my fingers into his. His hand was cold. I would warm it up. This was okay, I told myself. We were okay. If a neighbor were to see us at the Stop & Shop, it would be okay. So what? I had taken a lover. Maybe this one was not the best choice, but there were crazier things. He made me happy. Jonathan had seen us on the beach. We had not been struck by lightning. Rachel was a big girl. She called herself an adult. She had a job. She was in college. She had started having sex in high school. I was not supposed to know this, but I did. She could handle this. She could be angry, she could be hurt. She would be okay.

  Zahid looked down at my hand, at our fingers intertwined, pale and brown. He had the most beautiful fingers.

  Zahid

  I was, of course, offered the job. The salary was not spectacular and the job was not spectacular. It was a four-class course load and it was only for one year. The pregnant professor would have her baby and she would return to work. I would be back in the position of looking for another job. It was bullshit, actually.

  I wanted to write my book. I wanted to stay in Connecticut, beautiful white privileged Connecticut, I wanted to see the seasons change, I wanted to experience fall in Connecticut, take walks on the beach in winter, why not, I wanted to make love to Becca, and write my book. I wanted to eat meals with her and drink good wine. I had grand romantic gestures floating around in my head: a marriage proposal. I wanted Becca to know that I was serious. I was serious about her. That this was my life. I did not want this chance, almost a miracle, to slip away. I did not want Becca to go back to her husband. I did not want her to sacrifice me for the sake of her daughter. I could marry her. I lay awake at night and wondered about ways to propose.