Frog (38 page)

She invited him in for coffee. Maybe that'd be the best idea, she'd said, though she wasn't sure why. They talked, drank tea and ate toast. Her expression when she'd opened the door was reserved, observing. He'd said then honestly, he had no gun and then that that was a stupid remark. After awhile she said there didn't seem to be anything menacing about him but she still felt he'd acted very strangely, pursuing her when everything she'd said and did was against it and he could have been locked up. He said maybe once, twice in his life had he acted that way but never so inexorably. She said he was either lying to her, again or for the first time, or had forgot. Their respective families, educations, what each did professionally, where he lived and they'd been brought up, how'd she got the apartment, something about a print on her wall above the piano: naked woman riding a big furious bull, and not about what each thought it meant. Was that, he thinks he said, what playing the piano was to her? She laughed—not then, and he forgets what it was over or even if it was something he'd said that did it. Soon after she said maybe going to the party for half an hour—he'd asked again when she was still smiling—would be all right. Even if she wouldn't know anyone there but the Rerkovskys, she liked champagne almost more than anything and at wedding receptions you usually got the best. She was kidding of course, and maybe it wasn't such a good idea—it'd seem she'd come only for the party. Those questions she spoke about before would probably be asked: how'd they know each other, and so on. So they'd lie, he said. Oh, what should she do?—give her five minutes to dress. She shut the bedroom door. He sat on the couch not believing his luck and hoping she wouldn't change her mind. They went. She said once that she was having a good time, smiled warmly at him several times, spoke at length with Sid Rerkovsky about a neighborhood park problem and that she thought she could be of some help, told Howard after about an hour that she was leaving and he needn't walk her to her door. He stayed another hour, went home, couldn't stop thinking of her, wanted to call her, told himself not to for a couple of days, drank himself to sleep while reading several days of papers. They saw each other a few afternoons later. For almost every other night for months. Had an argument: she said he'd been repeatedly rude and hostile to her mother and to a lesser extent to other people and that was something she couldn't take in the man she was seeing. He said her mother had been hostile to him from day one, which would make him rude to her he supposed but didn't know, and as for the other people, he didn't know what the fuck she was talking about. They broke up, got back together a month later: he'd phoned, asked if he'd left a very important book to him at her apartment, knew she'd see through the pretext but thought he had to use something like it than saying straight off how much he missed her, dreamt of her, could hardly work because of her, that he'd been writing one a night these idiotic gushy poems about her, did she think they could meet to talk over some of their differences and so on? She said she didn't remember seeing the book but would look, but before she hung up, was that really why he'd called? He said it was a pretext, knew she'd see through it and was glad she had, and how much he missed her… They met, talked, started seeing each other again, he moved in with her, they had dinner at the Rerkovskys a number of times and had them over once, got married, the Rerkovskys wanted to give the reception in their apartment but she wanted to have a small wedding in her apartment and didn't want the Rerkovskys to be at the even smaller ceremony there. Had their first child less than a year later, moved to where a good job was for him, another child, she resumed teaching but evenings, lots else, then what happened to her happened.

Now he's back with the woman whose wedding reception it was. Gail. She's divorced, has a child. He got a Christmas card from her nine years after her wedding reception and wrote back saying what had happened to him since then. “You might remember the woman I came with, but I doubt you'd remember much on such an exciting day. Much that wasn't connected to you, I mean.” She'd sent him a Christmas card the two Christmases after she got married. He sent her a card back for the first one but doesn't think he got around to answering the second. Must have been just after Olivia was born, so too busy to, or just didn't see the point. Then he stopped hearing from her. From the Rerkovskys he'd learned she moved to Rome with her husband, and soon after that he and Denise left New York and lost touch with the Rerkovskys. It was the Rerkovskys, she said, who told her what school he got a job at years ago, which is where she sent the card, hoping he was still there or it'd be forwarded. She called him a few months later saying she'd be attending a conference in his city and would he care to come by her hotel for a drink. Did. They met downstairs, drank in the bar. He called the sitter to see if she'd stay another two hours, they had a quick dinner in the hotel cafe, went to her room for beers, made love. They corresponded and called after that, visited each other, she wondered why she hadn't found him this attractive back then. “I think I would have asked you to marry if I had. Maybe fatherhood and having been married and holding a responsible job and security and all you went through with your wife's illness have toned you down a ways. You were often a lot too argumentative and unsociable and crazy to me then. Even your sex was a bit too flaky, picking me up with you stuck in me and pinning me against the wall and sometimes banging me against it till you came. That hurt. Who cared if you got lost in it—I used to get bruises on my ass and back. It used to piss me off, if you remember, since you continued trying to do it even after I told you how I felt.” “I'd probably still be doing it if I wasn't ten years older and no doubt somewhat weaker. Last time I tried it with Denise was a couple of years ago—she was a little heftier than you, and she never complained when I did it—and I could barely pick her up. I think I even fell. Anyway, something for you to thank the aging process for.” “Even your foreplay action has changed. You used to rub my cunt too softly and kiss it too hard and I could never get you to switch those two.” “That was your and Denise's doing. I figured that after the two of you had said it, and also some vague remembrances of other women saying something like it in the past, I had to be doing something wrong. Didn't make me feel that good either, realizing my technique there had been off some thirty years, even if some women might not have been aware it was, but I'm probably wrong there too.”

He told her he found her much more attractive now too. He'd always found her attractive, face and body, with legs and a rear end that gave him a hard-on almost every time he looked at them, but he could never love her. As he did Denise. And other women before Denise. Certain things about her. She annoyed him at times, though he didn't say so. Things she did and said. She was educated but not in areas he found interesting. She read stupid books, wanted to see what he knew would be banal movies and plays. She too frequently watched moronic TV. She was too showy in appearance. She barely tolerated the music he liked and hated it when he had it on in the car. “It's depressing, funereal, old.” Her voice was often fake. There was something unnatural about her in lots of ways. Too much time in front of the mirror, inspecting herself, clothes, trying out faces, poses. Sometimes he caught her. And that it didn't embarrass her when he did. Hair, which she seemed to change the style of every other month, and nose, which she was seriously thinking of getting bobbed and pugged. He'd never touch it, he told her, if she did get it fixed. But he was lonely for close adult company and inherently horny it seemed and depressed when he did it to himself. There'd been two women for short periods before her and both he showed minimal interest in and they dropped him abruptly. Their sex was good. She got him started even when he thought he wouldn't feel like it, and let him do it whichever way and whenever he wanted to, even when she was sleeping, except for picking her up. She was smart and well respected in her field, perceptive about other people, had a few bright congenial friends. She was a good mother and daughter and warm and attentive to his girls. And generous with money—and made lots of it and stood to inherit a bundle, which didn't influence him and he'd in fact always got along better with much poorer women. Thought of interesting things to do with the girls and them, got him away from his work, was lively, sometimes funny, energetic. Great cook, kept a clean house, did his taxes better than he, went out of her way to aid disabled people across the street, and other things. So one day he says “Hey listen, what're we fooling around for—why don't we get married?” She says “Only if you're absolutely sure you want to. Occasionally I don't feel you really love me.” “I do. I want to marry you. Both very much. Only, promise not to get a nose job. We'll write it into our marriage contract. I don't know what I can agree to to meet it. Certainly nothing about money, since whatever I save has to go to my girls first, and it'll be chicken feed compared to what you'll be able to put away. That I'll keep my sperm count high in case you want another child.” “I won't. And I can't promise. I've an awful nose. It's long, droops, and has bumps. Some women look sweet with a drop dripping out of a nostril or hanging off it, but I look gargoylish. What I think of myself is important, so I probably will go through with it in addition to surgery with the chin and around the eyes if I think I need it later on.” “At least, before you let them break your nose and hack away at the cartilage, give me a day to try to talk you out of it.” He wonders if he'll ever end up loving her, be glad he's married to her, be able to continue to make love with her, can keep up the pretense for years? He thinks with the sex he can, since he's able to separate it when he wants to, but doubts he can with the others. So what then? They'll stay married for a number of years, with luck till around the time his girls might not need her as much or need him, to restrain him sometimes and for his self-control and composure, to have a companion anymore, and also when he might be too indifferent or lost something somehow to care about having a woman around for just company and sex.

They get married. No honeymoon. He doesn't want to leave his girls so soon after the marriage. Desertion. Gail and her daughter move into his little semi-detached house, she gets a high-paying job in his city, in a few months has the roof reshingled, basement finished, most of the furniture replaced, kitchen recabineted, tiny backyard and front and side grass areas sodded and planted with bulbs and fruit trees, and knows more places to buy things and go to and has made more friends than he and Denise had in years. He tells her he loves her whenever he feels she needs to hear it, but he never means it. Wishes he did though. That he could think about her wistfully during the day, late afternoons long for her to come home, want to jump her before they get into bed, cuddle with her through sleep, dream of making love to her, kiss her lips when he gets out of bed early morning to exercise and run. He still thinks about Denise a lot, as much as he did before he met Gail. Doing day-to-day things. Typing, driving, fluffing a pillow. But also, if he can't get an erection with Gail and wants to, he'll think about making love with Denise, especially with him on his knees behind her and one time in particular when the lights were on or it was daylight and she had her rear raised and vulva opened, and usually gets one. Also, if he's about to come with Gail and she's close to it or he feels if she does he'll sleep better because she will or else he wants her to come before he does so he can then, once she's done, enter her from behind, he'll think of Denise just after she died or when he opened the coffin the night before the funeral to have a last private look at her and kissed her forehead and wedding band or when she was bedridden and unable to move even a finger or toe. Then his penis will shrink, ejaculation be stalled, and he'll press their pelvises together and go through the motions and rub her where she likes if he can get his hand there and she'll usually come and then he'll urge or turn her over on her hands and knees if she isn't on them and maybe think of making love with Denise or just Denise nude or just of her vulva if he has to to get an erection and do it in the position, if she moves back and forth at the right time, he likes best.

He also continues to read letters Denise sent him before they were married, look at her photos. Two especially. Nude Polaroids of her seven to eight months pregnant with Olivia. Maine, secluded rented cabin, tips of trees and ideal summer sky behind her, standing on the top porch step, he must have been sitting or lying on the porch when he took them, looking down at him skeptically and saying to herself, she later told him when he asked, “Why am I doing this for you and what if someone gets ahold of it? I'm so bloated and deformed, it'll come out pornographic.” He promised to only take one but then lied and said his finger was over the slot when the photo came out and took a second with her consent before the first was developed. She wanted to destroy both but he swore he'd never let anyone see them or leave them in a place where they could be found accidentally. They were the only nude shots he had of her. Huge belly, enormous breasts, it seemed twice as much pubic and armpit hair but that was probably just the shadows, ankles swollen, thighs wider, face chubbier, big dark aureoles, and so on. Same position and look in both, so he doesn't know which one he had to lie to get. He cut the borders off them and then some of the porch and sky till they fit into one of the plastic sleeves of his wallet's photo section under another photo. Doesn't remember what photo they were under then—maybe the same one as now, which is of his mother, standing between his uncle and aunt, their arms interlocked, posing merrily at Denise's and his wedding reception. Meantime he's gone through three or four almost identical wallets. He wishes he'd taken nude photos of her when she wasn't pregnant. Soon after he met her, for instance, when he said if
Playboy
had a pictorial essay planned on nude assistant profs, she'd be a great choice (she wasn't flattered, said his remark was dumb and young), or about six months after she had Eva, when she'd slimmed down to her lowest adult weight, done lots of muscle-toning exercises and swimming and jumping rope. Even her buttocks were getting hard. Taken pornographic photos, even. Front, back, lying down, legs spread apart, fingering herself, shots of them making love taken with the aid of a timer, from behind with her rear raised, vulva opened, head turned around to him. He once asked her to pose nude when she wasn't pregnant—a simple shot, standing and smiling—when she was stepping out of the shower and he held up the unopened Polaroid camera. But she said the only reason she let him keep the nude ones he had of her was because they didn't resemble her except for the skeptical expression somewhat when she's doing something she doesn't really want to but oh what the fuck, and her hair when it had been dried by the sun after a shampoo, brushed hard and pinned up.