Practice Makes Perfect (4 page)

H
elen watched Henry take a sip of his coffee. He was sitting on the couch, flanked by George and Tammy, who loved him. She thought they might love him more than they loved her, which usually made her a little mad. Today, she was hoping their love would be enough of a distraction that she wouldn't have to spend too much time discussing what she did or did not say to Henry last night.

“So,” Henry said, putting down his mug while George and Tammy's eyes followed his hands. Henry sat back, and the two dogs put their heads on his lap, where he dutifully began scratching behind happy-dog ears. “Have a good weekend?”

Henry was a lot of wonderful things, but coy was definitely not one of them. They could dance around it until their coffee got cold, or she could just bite the bullet. “Let's get it over with, Henry.”

He sat up straight, dislodging the pups. “You're writing a romance novel?”

She sighed. “Technically, I already wrote it.”

“I can't believe this! Helen, that's great!”

Well, that wasn't quite the reaction she had expected.

“When did you do this? How long have you been writing? What's it about? Besides romance, I mean.”

“Well—”

“And if it's already written, what were you talking about, that you can't write sex scenes?”

Damn Henry and his good memory. And her and her drunken confessions.

“More importantly, why didn't you tell me?”

Was he . . . was he hurt? She dared a look into his eyes. Yup, definitely hurt.

“I share all of my work with you,” he continued. “And this whole time, while I've been blathering on about original floor plans and sconces and . . . whatever . . . you've had this giant secret project that you didn't even tell us about?”

She didn't really have a response to that. And she was kind of surprised that he was mad.

“Does Grace know?”

Helen shook her head. The only thing worse than telling Henry about it would be telling Grace. Grace read romance novels. She'd want to read Helen's. Helen wasn't ready for that.

True, Helen's goal was for the book to be published, and once it was published, she couldn't stop Grace—or anyone—from reading it. Her reluctance made no sense.

This did not change Helen's mind.

“I don't like this,” Henry said.

“Excuse me?” Helen had known this was coming, the
You're too good for romance novels
. The
Why would you waste your time writing that trash when you could be writing something worthwhile?
She just hadn't thought it would be coming this soon. She'd imagined he would at least need some time to think about it. “You don't like it? I can write whatever I want to, thank you very much. Just because you have some high-minded—”

“Whoa! Slow down, there. I don't care
what
you're writing. I just don't like that you kept it from me.”

“I'm sorry. I was just embarrassed. I thought you wouldn't get it.”

“Helen, this is an amazing accomplishment. Why would I be anything but proud of you?”

Helen tried to come up with a good answer to that. Instead, she blushed. He was proud. She was proud too, dammit. She'd worked hard on that crappy book.

“No more secrets, OK?” he said, and he looked so sincere and earnest, she thought he was asking her to bring him home from the dog pound. She'd fallen for that before, and now she was stuck with two elderly hounds with whom she was madly in love.

Still, what Henry was asking wasn't such a big deal. They were friends. Friends didn't keep secrets.

“OK,” she said.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Pinky swear?” He held up his pinky and she rolled her eyes, but twisted her pinky around his and shook.

“Good. I thought something was really wrong, you were acting so strange.”

“No, I wasn't.”

“Helen, normally I can't keep you out of my business no matter how hard I try. Last week I went on a date, and you laughed at the story but you didn't give me crap for wearing a bow tie.”

“You always wear bow ties on first dates.”

“Yeah, and you always give me crap about it.”

“Well, nobody finds them sexy. That's why you never get second dates.”

“Hey, I don't
never
get second dates.”

She snorted.

“I sometimes get second dates! Anyway, this is what I'm talking about.” He waved his hand between them. “This. You haven't been doing this. You've been quiet. And you've been . . . oh my god, that's why you were looking up sex research in your office the other day!”

Helen dropped her head into her hands. “I was hoping you'd forget about that.”

Henry laughed. “Not on your life! Now that I know you're not dying, I'm going to give you so much crap for this. You've had it coming, you know. Sex research is the new bow tie.”

“Stop!” she said, but she couldn't stop the laugh that spilled out around it. “That's not nice.”

“Neither is suggesting that my neckwear hinders my love life.”

“So you're not the one who should be teasing me about sex research, then, should you?”

“Hey, I have plenty of sex!”

“So do I!”

And just like that, the temperature in the room changed. She wasn't sure if it was because they were yelling, or if it was because suddenly she was aware of Henry as not just a guy who was her friend, but of Henry as a man. A man who wore bow ties on first dates, sure, and a man who was sitting on her couch between her two aged basset hounds wearing a T-shirt from the bicentennial, which she knew he'd bought at a thrift store and was his favorite shirt in the world. But also a Man who had Sex.

She never really thought about Henry that way before.

This was probably going to be inconvenient.

* * *

Henry pushed his cart through the big box store, checking deodorant and paper towels and shoelaces off his shopping list. He hated stores like this with their fluorescent lights and poor labor practices. He was much more of a Main Street kind of shopper, but sometimes one's errand list forced one to be beholden to the gods of convenience.

He was wandering through the aisles. Now that he was here, he was feeling bewitched by the variety of things available. He threw some running shorts into his cart. A flashlight. Gum. Coffee. Condoms. Beer. Bread. Hand weights.

As he wandered and loaded himself down with stuff he didn't really need—but he
did
need the condoms, or hopefully he would soon—he found himself eventually in the toy section. He remembered hearing some kerfuffle about removing the gender identity from the toy aisles, which he thought was interesting, and now here he was. Trains next to stuffed puppies, Barbie next to G.I. Joe.

He looked at the action figures and the dolls. They were of a size.

It gave him an idea.

* * *

“Dang it, pups, we're almost home.” Helen practically dragged George's and Tammy's leashes behind her. They were getting older, which made them resistant to exercise and also made her more determined to exercise them. They, in exchange, started protesting the extra steps a little more strongly each week. “It's for your own good, you know,” she reminded them. If this week was anything like last week, the walk would end with her having to pick up each of these lazy hounds and carry them up the four front steps.

But not this week. As soon as they got to the gate, George and Tammy started barking like crazy and bolted up the steps to the front door.

Of course.

Henry was there.

They just
loooved
Henry.

“I was thinking about what you said, about needing to do some research,” he said, ignoring the dogs as well as anyone can ignore two forty-pound sacks of jowl gunning for one's ankles. “I thought I could help.”

Henry held up a big plastic bag. “I brought props.”

Helen felt her face go from hot to scorching. Was it possible to get sunburned from the inside out? Props? He'd brought props?

“No, uh, not like that.” He started fumbling awkwardly in the bag. Oh god, Helen thought. What are the neighbors going to think when they see a man in a bow tie standing on my front porch demonstrating sex toys?

Except they weren't sex toys. They were dolls. Just a Barbie and a G.I. Joe, ready to do battle with her prudish imagination.

“You know, for positions. And stuff. I didn't really think this through, did I?”

Somehow, Henry's embarrassment made her feel less embarrassed, as if she now had permission to say, yup, your best friend showing up on your front porch with plastic dolls to be used for sexual research is totally weird, but that doesn't mean it's not happening and it's not funny.

“Come on,” she said, opening the front door and letting George and Tammy make their mad dash for the best spot on the couch. “Bring those inside before people start to talk.”

* * *

“So, what if they went like this?” Henry tried to get Joe's arm around Barbie's waist. But Joe's elbow joints were wonky, and so were Barbie's, and no matter what Henry tried, they ended up in a straight-armed tangle on the floor.

The tangle on the floor part was OK. Sometimes that happened. People tripped over undergarments and . . . well, maybe that was just him. Anyway, he wasn't feeling particularly inspired by anything else about posing two plastic dolls into quasi-erotic positions. He could tell by Helen's skeptical expression that she wasn't either.

So far G.I. Joe had seductively and straight-armedly removed Barbie's lab coat and glasses. (She was a Scientist Barbie, so of course she had glasses. And a tiny plastic clipboard. For science.) Then he slid his hands up her pencil skirt while she wrestled with his ammo belt. His clothes were attached with Velcro, which made for a nice Magic Mike–style reveal of his (literally) sculpted chest.

So far Helen had laughed, snorted, expressed pained discomfort (apparently just because Barbie's legs went up like that did not mean it was a helpful demonstration). She had taken very few notes. She took one picture, but he suspected that was of him getting the dolls into position and would probably require a bribe to keep it off of Instagram.

“Henry, maybe Barbie and Joe aren't that into each other.”

“They totally are! Look at how her plastic fingers are poking his chest! That's a lust poke!”

“First of all, I'm writing down ‘lust poke.' Second, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but . . .”

“Dammit, I paid a lot of money for these dolls. They're going to have sex!”

Helen looked from him to the dolls, then back to him. “I'm writing that down too.”

He tossed G.I. Joe on the floor in frustration. “I thought it would work.”

“Henry, I know how sex works.”

“Yes, but I thought the dolls would help you visualize some interesting new positions. Except they're not cooperating,” he said accusingly to the inanimate tangle of plastic limbs on the floor.

“I get it. And I can see how that might be helpful,” she conceded.

“You know, figure out angles and what the other hand is doing, and legs and . . .”

“The problem is, these are dolls.”

Henry looked at her. Yes, they were. That was the point.

“I mean, yes, they're supposed to be humanlike, but they're not really, are they?”

“Are you suggesting this is not what a normal male chest looks like?” he asked, holding up G.I. Joe.

“True, the men in my experience have all had sculpted chests and no nipples . . .”

“And built-in underwear.”

“Very inconvenient.”

“So, they're not realistic enough?”

She held up a hand. “Please, do not go out and find more realistic-looking dolls to torture.”

“I wasn't!” he lied.

“The thought is lovely, and they're vaguely humanoid. But they're so . . . hard.” She tapped on Barbie's back. “And they're missing all the fun parts of sex. You can't move their fingers or their mouths. I mean, kissing is about more than just jamming faces together.”

“True.”

“And, no offense to Barbie, but this body is not happening.”

“So . . . this didn't help at all? You didn't even get one iota of inspiration?”

“Well, I kind of liked the lift thing.”

Henry beamed with pride. Then he realized he was beaming with pride because he had done sexually inventive things with Barbie and G.I. Joe, and he felt weird. Proud, but weird.

“All in the name of science,” he said.

“And writing. But, gah, I don't know. There's still something . . . I can get the big-picture things, like he'll lift her and ravage her, fine. But it's the little parts. I can't seem to slow down and capture them.”

“The little parts, like the jamming-the-face-together things?”

“Yeah. I have a feeling ‘they jammed their faces together' is not quite what that editor had in mind.”

Henry thought for a minute. She needed to be able to focus on the little moments of lovemaking, from a realistic perspective. Fake people weren't doing it. They needed real people to do it.

They were real people.

Before he could think too hard about it, he scooted closer to Helen on the couch. “Get ready to take notes,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her.

* * *

One minute Helen was breathing her own air, realizing one of her best friends was more of a dork than she could have possibly imagined.