by Sharon Heath
8. “And sometimes, and this is the most embarrassing, and you mustn’t mention any of this to anyone, I imagine that I do die and wonder who will feel terrible about it and who will say a quick, ‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ before going merrily on their way. Maybe it’s because I have no living family that I assume there’ll be more of those than the former. I know it sounds masochistic and maybe a little martyr-y, but it illustrates the kinds of weirdness that can take over when it’s just me, myself, and I.”
It was the last one that nearly killed me. Sally and I stared at each other. She’d stood up at some point, and I’d unconsciously gotten up to join her, facing her awkwardly with my hands clasped in front of me like a movie usher. I knew that some soppy reassurance that I loved her and would miss her terribly would hardly do justice to the depth of loneliness she’d just described. I felt spoiled, all my life having been surrounded by people who cared about me, including at Father’s house, where even at the height of my odd-duckishness, I sensed that Grandfather and Jillily and Nana and Sister Flatulencia and Fayga and Cook and Ignacio and Dhani were my tribe, if a fairly cockamamie one. And now, of course, I had someone who’d run into a burning house to save me, who’d die for me.
Disciplining the impulse to pinch, I allowed one long python of a sigh to wind its way out of me. The “word” that finally emerged was not unlike Grandfather’s ugga umph ugga.
I finally mustered the focus to say, “You might feel like it’s weird, but it’s not.” I thought about sharing with her all my own preoccupations with the void and the Green-eyed Monster and how much time our species had left on the planet. But instead, I added, “Actually, that’s just the point. None of it is. Weird, I mean. I’ll bet if we did a statistical analysis of what people think about when they’re living alone, it would look a lot like what you’ve described.” (What I didn’t tell her was that I’d be recording an informal study of it now in my list.)
“Ya think?” Sally laughed. “Nah. I’m more of a mind that it shows that I’m ca-razy!” She did an odd little whirl, capped by making illustrative circles with her index finger by the side of her head.
Now, and only now, did it feel right and safe to hug her. I wrapped my arms around her, marveling at the lack of bulges in her lean frame as I whispered in her ear, “Thank you so much for telling me this. Don’t think for a minute that I don’t take it seriously.” Suddenly, I had an idea and pushed her away to arm’s length. “Would you like to move in with us?” As I could see the automatic objection begin to rise up from her throat, I put up a hand. “Please don’t go knee-jerk on me. You know we’ve already got an extended household. And we love it. It’s how I grew up, and Adam was so lonely in that big house of his childhood without a mother and with his father in Washington most of the time that he loves it, too. We’ve actually got two more extra bedrooms, one with a full bath. And we adore you. We could talk butterflies twenty-four/seven. And you could even teach me how to twirl paper. Think about it. Please.” By the end, I felt I was asking as much for my own benefit as for hers. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep at night knowing Sally was going through all that torture by herself.
I saw her struggling with what I’d said and counted it as a good sign that she was speechless.
When I said goodbye at the end of the day, I forestalled her teary “Thank you for what you said earlier—”
“Just think about it,” I insisted.
I have to admit that I was rather busy congratulating myself on the morning that Sally moved in. Adam and I didn’t want to embarrass her by hiring a moving company, but we were worried about how she was going to manage the hefty moving fees until Melky and Tom and Amir saved the day by offering to do the heavy lifting. Actually, Melky alone probably could have handled the job, but none of us wanted to say so. It wasn’t that she was bringing tons of stuff with her. Most of it was going into storage with the unspoken assumption that she’d make a household for herself again at some point, presumably with a man. (You’ve probably gathered by now that Sally Price, with her intriguing blend of Greek and Japanese heritage, was unusually attractive.) But still, what she brought with her was heavy: her bed was a beautiful and gigantic pine four-poster; it had a nearly-matching armoire, and a scientist’s collection of books was nothing to sneeze at but for the dust accumulated behind older tomes. So Tom and Amir and Melky groaned and sneezed their way up our staircase to Sally’s bedroom, with beams of light and the smell of jasmine streaming in through the opened windows, and Lukie prepared to dust each book before putting it away into the wall-to-ceiling bookcases. We all knew that Sally would rearrange them to her tastes as soon as Lukie was out of sight, but no one had the heart to stop her.
The whole household was excited about the new member of our family. Callay couldn’t stop tugging at everyone’s pant legs and announcing that “Thrpryce” had come to stay, and Melesse and Sofiya had made a banner for her bedroom door bejeweled with sequins and Day-Glo hearts and flouncy lettering announcing brightly, “Welcome Home, Sally!” Sofiya couldn’t stand still, running up and down the staircase as each piece of furniture was delivered. She was all elbows and knees these days, having shot up nearly half a foot in half a year. Makeda liked to affectionately say to her, “How did I know that my daughter was going to become a tree?” As for Buster, he’d offered Sally perhaps the sweetest greeting ever, jumping onto her queen bed as soon as Melky and Tom set it down and kneading the bare mattress like a conqueror, purring loudly all the while.
“I think someone might have a bedmate if she wants one,” I commented. Sally flashed me a questioning look until I added, “You’d be doing us a huge favor. Buster likes to get in between us when we’re sleeping, and it drives Adam nuts.”
It hadn’t escaped my attention that I’d actually invited the woman Adam had fantasized having a threesome with into our home. I’d raised the fact that I’d invited her as soon as I’d returned home that night, realizing with a thudding heart that it was terribly bad form to fail to consult with him before asking her. It was his home every bit as much as mine, never mind that Mother had paid for it. He raised an eyebrow when I broached it, his hands still covered in suds from Callay’s bath. I myself was holding our child at that moment, as if I were unconsciously protecting myself from any possible objection.
“You really should have asked me first, but of course we should have her here. The truth is, I love you even more for your generosity.” He paused and ventured cautiously, “Are you sure you’ll be okay with it?”
I shot back quickly, “Is there any reason I shouldn’t be?”
He rubbed his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, a “tell” that he was struggling with how to say something. Finally, he muttered, “Talk about beating around the bush.” Then he flushed. “No pun intended.”
But I didn’t laugh. He said, “Here, let’s get this little girl to bed first.”
Of course, that took another hour. We had a whole ritual with Callay. “Good night,” I’d say, to which she’d append, “Thleep tight.” And then Adam’s, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” Actually, we’d had a whole go ’round on that one the first time, explaining that it was just an expression, which, needless to say, we struggled to explain, finally calling it a joke. She liked jokes. Especially those of the knock-knock variety. My favorite, which she must have learned from Sister Flatulencia, since we certainly hadn’t taught it to her, went like this:
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Olive.”
“Olive who?”
“Olive you,” in the sweetest voice ever. And then we’d all melt into a puddle together.
She was an unusually sweet child. At least we thought so. But then, we thought she was unusually everything.
But this night, we collapsed onto our bed fully clothed after tucking her in and turning out her overhead lights (but leaving on the duck-billed nightlight from my own childhood, the one with the chipped beak). I felt a bit dazed wi
th exhaustion, and I found myself starting to drop off until Adam broke in. “I’m over it, you know.”
I sat up. “Over what?”
“The three-way thing. Actually, Sally, too. Don’t get me wrong. I like her and everything. And she’s pretty. Very pretty. But ...” He shrugged. “The truth is, the only one I’ve ever really wanted was you, Fleur. And now that you’ve come back to me”—that one made me so sad—“I can’t get enough of the way it feels to be with you.” He came closer, licking my ear. “Not just with you. Inside you. Inside the folds and twists of you.”
A bit shocked, I blushed. I’d never heard Adam—or any man, for that matter—describe what it felt like to insert his member into a tweeter. But why shouldn’t a penis have a whole host of sensations when it was inside a vagina? I certainly had a full share of my own discrete physical experiences when he was inside me. I searched his face for whether he really was over Sally and it really did seem that he spoke the truth. Relieved, I said, “I thought something had changed. You’ve seemed a bit more ... intense. Honestly, we should probably both thank Sally.” I laughed nervously. “But not literally.” Shyly, I shared with him as if it were a secret, “It changed for me, too.”
He kissed me then, long and slow the way I liked it. The way we both did. He rolled fully to his side and pulled me close, his member poking my belly.
“I think we should take our clothes off,” I murmured.
“You’re not too tired?”
“For you?” I said, pulling my T-shirt over my head, then unhooking my bra. I saw him staring at my erect nipples. I knew he still loved my breasts, though they hung a few inches lower these days. I took his hand and put it against me. I felt myself dissolve as he stroked me and moistened me with his lips. I caught myself whispering soundlessly as if from the outermost edge of an event horizon, “Have to tell Sam. Mazzy Star.”
Chapter Nineteen
THE FIRST MONTH of Sally staying with us proved to be what Adam had dubbed “a regular cackle fest.” It was true. Put three women together in one household, and if they were deeply fond of each other, it wasn’t just their menses that synced up.
Sometimes Sammie joined us, but all too often she brought Amira with her. The latter had decided to edit her film here in SoCal, which meant that I was being subjected rather regularly to the tone of condescension she seem to reserve solely for me.
On a night when Makeda and Melky had gone out and Adam had joined Tom and Amir and Gunther for a night of billiards, I confided my discomfort to Sally, who merely laughed and said, “Sweet Fleur. You do realize she’s jealous, don’t you?”
Dummkopf! The thought had never occurred to me. Did other people suffer as badly from the Green-eyed Monster as I did? Even people like Amira, with her wit and her winged eyebrows and her olive skin like silk? I really needed to learn to do what Adam often urged on me: “Give it a rest.”
Which was why I agreed to go with Sammie and Amira to The Move, West Hollywood’s historic gay dance club, before its planned demolition to make way for a megalithic hotel and retail complex. They couldn’t wait to dress up for Flamenco Night, and I had to confess that, despite my ongoing discomfort with Amira, I relished the prospect of finding a fun costume for a night out on the town. It would be a far cry from the sweatshirts and Birkenstocks that were pretty much de rigueur at Caltech. The flamenco number I managed to dig up at Shelly’s Dance and Costume (“Where Every Body Fits In”) was a long, black, crepe V-necked dress, a bit more formfitting than I would have preferred, but the diagonal, vibrant red ruffles at the calves and wrists took the attention away from the amplitude of my hips and breasts. I decided to accessorize with a beautiful black silk shawl with embroidered red flowers that Mother had brought back from Spain. I could have sworn it still bore a hint of her Chanel No. 5 when I swirled it over my shoulders.
When Sam arrived to fetch me, wearing a gorgeous turquoise and black dress with a matching vest, she looked absolutely stunning. I gasped, then directed a long, pitiful look at Adam before I followed her out the door.
I’d told him earlier, while he was watching me get dressed with great curiosity, that I was dreading the evening just a little.
“Why?” he’d asked. “Is it because you’ll miss me?”
I minced over, the dress still around my knees before being coaxed over my hips, and batted his chest playfully. “It’s not all about you, you know.”
Laughing, he helped me inch the garment over my hips, giving me gooseflesh with little chicken-peck kisses of various parts of my body along the way. He studied me with appreciative appraisal once I managed to do a twirl for him
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Then he snorted. “That was a Freudian slip if there ever was one. Well, what is it about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Me at a gay club. Or LGBTQ, or whatever I’m supposed to call it.”
“Hmm. That sounds hostile and maybe even a little homophobic. Is this the same woman who fought with me over going to the Gay Survival Parade?”
“Yes, but this is more ... I mean, what if someone makes a pass at me?”
He looked me up and down, murmuring, “Which they’d be crazy not to do.”
“No, Adam. Don’t be silly. I’m not fishing for compliments.”
“What are you fishing for? Permission not to go?”
“No, I’m not. Actually, it’s not that at all. It’s Amira. I think she hates me. And honestly, I’m not so sure I like her.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. “Well, that is a problem. She’s your best friend’s girlfriend.”
“I know, and I wouldn’t dream of telling Sam. But what am I ever going to do?”
He frowned and rubbed his chin. “I think it’s a good that you’re going. Maybe if you’re able to be with each other in a more let-loose kind of environment, some of that tension will fall away. I’ve heard that people go wild at The Move.”
“I don’t want to go wild,” I wailed. “I just don’t want to feel strained when I’m with Sam.” I spread my hands haplessly. “Amira seems to be part of the package these days.”
“Ah. Jealousy. It does seem to kick up from time to time.”
“That’s what Sally thought. But I think it’s more than that. I don’t get to have my best friend as my own anymore. Do all the things we used to do together.”
“Jealousy,” Adam pronounced solemnly. “We were both only children. We have a hard time sharing.”
“We? Do you, too?”
“Isn’t that part of what we’ve been struggling with? And not just in a way that impacted our sex life. I lost a lot of your special attention when Callay came along. And then there’s been Makeda and the girls. And Melky. And Sally.”
When I looked at it that way, I felt awful. “Oh dear. Do you resent them?”
“No, but I’ve had to stretch. And I do believe the stretching has been good for me.”
I felt flooded with gratitude. “You’re a good man, Adam. I hope you don’t still think you’re too nice.”
He laughed. “Did I say that?”
“You did. At Shutter’s. When we first—”
But he interrupted me. “Nice? Moi?” He grabbed me, pretend roughly, and slid a hand under my skirt.
I giggled but moved away. “Sammie will be here any minute. We can’t.” I unconsciously plucked at my wrist ruffle.
“What is it?”
Do you think that’s why Makeda and Melky are looking for their own place? That it’s too ‘stretchy’ living with so many people?”
“It might certainly play a part.” He paused. “They’re trying to get pregnant, you know.”
“Are they?” I marveled. And then I felt a pang that even I recognized as jealousy. “How did you find out?”
Adam bopped me gently on the head with a bed cushion. “Because Melky’s my mate, that’s how.”
My jealousy wasn’t so intense that it could stop me from breaking into a broad grin. “Oh, Adam, and to think that she’d almost given up sex forever.”<
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“I know,” he said. “You’ve been a miracle in her life.”
“Not just me. You. Modern science. That surgery she had was a godsend.” I let myself soak it in. “But I’m going to miss her and the girls. And Melky.”
“I know, love. Me, too.”
“But I doubt that I’d miss Amira if she left tomorrow.”
Given all that, you can imagine how I felt as—Sammie having gotten into the car behind the Lyft driver—I had no choice but to slide into the back seat next to Amira, who was in the middle. In the light of the still-open car door, I could see that my nemesis wore a simple, sophisticated black sheath and pointed flat-heeled shoes, a floral Spanish comb in her wavy hair her sole concession to tonight’s theme. Suddenly, my dress felt way too gaudy, like a kid’s Halloween costume, and my skin began to prickle with shame.
But Amira paid no attention to what I wore, just smiled one of her mysterious smiles, granted me a quick, “Hello, Fleur,” then turned to Sam and initiated what became a rather lingering kiss. Our Lyft driver was an older man, seemingly of Arabic descent. In the rearview mirror, I spied his darkly disapproving expression. I vowed then to be a better person, starting with commenting brightly to Amira as she finally turned to face forward, “I can’t wait to see what everyone’s wearing! Thanks so much for including me.” Which was received with an imperious nod of her head.
As it happens, The Move was aptly named. Once Sam and I managed to extricate our long dresses from the Ford Fusion, and after Amira rose onto the sidewalk like water pouring backward, we passed under a high red arch to join a pulsing phenomenon composed of individual parts that coalesced—thanks to rousingly hypnotic fandango clapping, myriads of mirrored disco balls, and lustrous light shows displayed on large, suspended screens—into a viscously oozing organism. We fumbled for a table, and a waiter instantly materialized like magic from the crowd.