The Not-So-Perfect Man (6 page)

Saturday, October 19
11
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M
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Ilene turned on the shower full blast. Hot. Hotter than Peter could take. He’d asked if he could join her. She said, “I’m not sure you can stand the heat.”

He glared at her and said, “Is that your way of telling me to stay out of the kitchen?”

“Not at all,” she replied, and then hopped into the steaming stream of water, effectively ending conversation.

Ilene had been awake since nine. She bounded out of the bed to make herself breakfast, read the paper, and checked any after-the-bell financial news on FNN. She was eager to get started with her Saturday. First, she’d head over to David Isen’s new bachelor pad at noon to help him unpack until fourish, then go to the gym and pound the treadmill into submission for an hour. Steam, sauna, and then she’d get her six o’clock Swedish massage at the club spa from Renaldo. After which she’d come home, make herself a giant salad, and watch at least three hours of the BBC six-hour production of
The Singing Detective.
Ilene wasn’t sure what Peter had planned. She should have checked before she’d scheduled her day. But then again, Saturday had long been the one day of the week they both reserved for personal use.

She stepped out of the shower, towel dried her long, straight hair, and walked into their bedroom in her silk robe.

“Surprise,” said Peter.

Curtains down, the room was dark. Peter lay nude beneath the sheets. Candles lit the room, around the perimeter of the bed, the mantel, the bookshelves, the dresser, and night tables. Some were fat, some thin, a spectrum of colors. The scents were a bit much. Ilene nearly recoiled from the commingled fragrances.

“Did you buy up the entire candle department at Pier One?” she asked. Her eyes and nose fully occupied, the music took a moment to register. “Is that Ravel?”

Peter, grinning, patted the space next to him on the bed.

Ilene stood, frozen, at the threshold of the bathroom.

He said, “Come, wife.”

“You lit all these candles while I was in the shower?” asked Ilene.

“Obviously,” he said. “Are you coming over here or not?”

Ilene was touched he’d go to such effort—not much; in fact, hardly any—but she was running late. She was expected at David’s in a half hour. How to get out of this without hurting Peter’s feelings?

She cinched her robe more tightly around her waist and walked over to him. She sat on the very edge of the bed. He scooted toward her, keeping himself fairly well covered, and put his arms around her waist.

Ilene let him touch her, but she didn’t allow him to pull her down. She said, “Sweetie, this is so nice of you.”

“I’m glad you like it. I have other surprises in mind.”

That’s when her eyes lit on the small tin on his night table. It was black with a gold ribbon wrapped around it. “What’s that?” she asked.

Peter was kissing her wrist. Between smacks, he said, “It’s chocolate body paint. I thought I’d smear some on you and, you know. Lick it off.”

She laughed. “Only you could turn sex into a high-calorie act.”

He stopped kissing her. But then started again, speaking between smacks. “I thought we could spend the day together, in bed. It
is
Saturday, after all.”

“Sweetheart, we haven’t spent a Saturday in bed since2001.” They used to, every week, each choosing to use their personal time to administer to the other’s personal needs. It had been a ritual. Sex, breakfast, sex, lunch, sex, dinner, sex, snack, sleep. Now that she thought of it, maybe it was all those Saturdays of indulging themselves that had instigated Peter’s post-marital weight gain.

He said, “Then we’re long past due.”

She said, “You’re very sweet, Peter. Really.”

He dropped her forearm. Her hand hit the bed and bounced gently on the down-covered mattress. “ ‘Sweetie, sweetheart, sweet Peter, really,’ ” he said mockingly. “You obviously want to leave. So get dressed and go.”

She felt terrible. But she did have to get dressed. “I’ll make it up to you later, I promise.”

He said, “Glad I went to all this trouble. I want it on record that I tried.”

“Noted,” she said, standing.

“And that you are not meeting me halfway.”

She was starting to feel annoyed. He’d sprung his little seduction at the worst possible time. Why couldn’t he have waited until tonight? Besides which, as she suddenly felt compelled to say, “What trouble? You lit a bunch of cheap candles, put on a CD, and bought some stupid condiment. If you really want to interest me, you could go to the honest effort of getting in shape. That would mean something. Not this unoriginal, low-rent, porn-inspired crap.” She flung open her closet door and added, “Every time we have sex, I’m half-convinced you’re going to have a heart attack. Not exactly fun for me.”

He wasn’t listening. He’d already bunched up the covers, wrapped them around his body and gone into the bathroom. She dressed quickly and left.

“David, it’s gorgeous!” said Ilene. The apartment was lovely. David, himself, looked pretty good, too. In the six weeks since he’d left his wife, he’d taken off ten years. Separation was like all-natural Botox. David could appear in an advertisement for breakups: “In no time, you’ll have healthier, younger-looking skin. Guaranteed!”

“Come look at the kitchen,” he said. “I can fit a decent-size table in here. These cabinets will have to go. I don’t need the shelf space anyway. I tell you, living alone has been liberating. Much less stuff.”

They walked in circles, admiring David’s EIK in the sprawling West Village apartment he bought yesterday. Ilene had been getting daily updates on his apartment search over the last few weeks. He’d looked at dozens of properties before deciding to buy this “modest charmer” on Minetta Lane, near Sixth Avenue. Modest indeed. It was at least sixteen hundred square feet, probably in the seven-figure neighborhood. The actual neighborhood was noisy and crowded. Full of head shops, tattoo parlors, leather emporiums—and the legion of tourists who came to shop at them. David said he’d always wanted to live in the Village. Ilene could not fathom why.

Ilene was dying to ask about the financial details. He and his estranged wife hadn’t sold their duplex yet (they’d make a huge profit on that sale, enough for Georgia to buy a twenty-acre farm in Vermont if she wanted to). Did David have $200,000 lying around for the down payment, as well as enough liquid to pay two mortgages concurrently? Plus alimony and child support?

“Your third move in a month,” she said. “You seem unfazed.”

He said, “I’m fazed. I miss seeing Stephanie every day. But I have a good feeling about this apartment. I’m relieved to get out of the Roosevelt.”

David had been living in the East-Side luxury hotel. Must have cost a fortune, thought Ilene. David had to have family money. Working at
Cash
would give him a middle-class income in New York. Nowhere near enough to handle his expenses. And look at him! His was not the face of a man who was worried about paying the bills.

She said, “I wouldn’t mind living in a hotel. Room service, housekeeping.”

He shrugged. “That goes old fast.”

“You missed the comforts of home,” she said.

“My home hadn’t been comfortable for a while,” he said. “You have such a great marriage, you probably can’t understand.”

Ilene’s turn to shrug. “All marriages have ups and downs.”

“My marriage fell down and it couldn’t get up,” he said. “Let me show you the master bedroom.” He grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward the back of the apartment, through the large living room, past the bathroom off the hallway. His fingers burned on the same skin Peter had kissed an hour before. Only then, she’d been ice cold.

“This is it,” David said. “Are you okay? Your face is bright red.”

“I’m fine.” She coughed. “Something caught in my throat.”

“What?”

“My throat.”

“What got caught in your throat?” he asked.

Her thudding heart? “I swallowed my gum,” she said.

“You chew gum?” he asked as if he could more easily imagine her gutting a trout. He swung the bedroom door open and said, “What do you think?”

She approved. The space was nearly bare, just a platform bed with navy sheets, shams, and duvet, some stacked moving boxes, a nightstand with an alarm clock. The door to the closet was open. Ilene saw the suits on hangers, arranged by color, exactly as she ordered her closet.

“It’s bright,” she said. “If you need help shopping for furniture, I’d love to join you. Really. It’s the next best thing to shopping for myself.” He nodded noncommittally. She added, “Once you’ve settled here, you should go out. Have some fun. You must let me take you to dinner. With Peter. I’ll ask my sister Frieda to come, too.”

“Frieda the widow.”

Why did he insist on calling her that? “Frieda’s really much better now. She’s never looked more beautiful. She’s a devoted mother. She owns a gallery in Brooklyn Heights,” pitched Ilene. She didn’t want to push too hard. She carefully turned the soil, keeping it moist. Planting seeds.

“You have two sisters, don’t you?” he asked.

Ilene said, “Betty is the youngest.”

“I met her once,” he said.

Ilene didn’t remember that meeting. She said, “I don’t think Betty’s ever come to the office.”

David said, “We ran into her on the street. We’d had a lunch at the Blue Water Grill and ran into her in Union Square afterwards. She was wearing a huge down coat. It looked like she’d wrapped a comforter around her body.” Ilene was drawing a complete blank. “Less than a year ago,” he prompted.

“You have an amazing memory,” she said.

“I never forget a coat,” he said.

Ilene looked out David’s window, at his view of Minetta Lane. The block was curved. Most of the buildings were a 150 years old or more. If one could delete cars from the picture, the street would be straight out of an Edith Wharton novel.

David opened one of his moving boxes and pulled out books. “Betty looks a lot like you,” he said.

“She does not!” said Ilene.

“She has your face.”

“On a size fourteen body.”

“I haven’t told you everything. About Georgia,” David said suddenly. “Let me get this off my chest right away: Georgia had an affair. With a teacher at Stephanie’s school. It’s over between them. I don’t know the full story, and I don’t want to know. Georgia denies it, but I bet she wants to move to Vermont just so she can take Stephanie out of that school and get away from him.”

Ilene’s mouth went dry. This affair complicated matters significantly. His emotional recovery might take longer than the six months she’d planned for.

“Forgive me if this is too personal,” started Ilene.

“If it’s too personal, I won’t answer,” he said.

“Has the affair destroyed your faith in women?”

“I thought you were going to ask me how I feel,” he said.

Ilene hated asking a man about his feelings. She preferred men kept their feelings to themselves. Nothing was quite as unappetizing as a quivering heart on a plate. The sight of a man crying? It could make a person sick.

Ilene said, “You can keep your feelings to yourself.”

David said, “I hate it when people ask me to open a vein and bleed all over them.”

She nodded. “The context is always so negative.”

“No one ever wants the update on your unbridled happiness,” David agreed. “Help me with these books.”

Ilene walked toward him. He dumped a stack in her arms and pointed at the bookshelf against the wall. “I’m sure I’ll trust a woman again, but next time, I’ll be more careful,” he said.

“How?” she asked.

“I’ve made a mental list of qualities I’d like to find in a woman,” he said. “Emotional strength, some sign that a woman can handle obstacles and hardships. She has to be optimistic, too. No more always seeing the dark side, like Georgia. Someone with kids would be nice. And some experience with marriage so we’d both have a history to improve on.”

Ilene smiled. Had he not just described Frieda exactly? Don’t push, she reminded herself. To keep her tongue silent, Ilene looked at her book pile and found a five-volume series on World War II. “Are you a Hitler freak?”

“I was a history major,” said David. “Thesis on America’s point-of-entry in nineteenth-and twentieth-century wars. You should see the Civil War series. Thousands and thousands of pages. The war lasted five years. It took me six years to read the books.”

“Now that’s commitment,” Ilene said, admiring his love of history.

“Did Georgia read these, too?” she asked.

He shook his head. “She read romance novels,” he said. “She liked hearts and loins, not arms.”

“Funny,” said Ilene. “So the Civil War series took you six years. How long did you say your marriage lasted?”

He laughed. “The marriage followed the path of the Revolutionary War series. Two years to get through, with a great start and a withering finish. But I had to see it to the end.”

“Once you hook onto something, you stick with it,” she said.

“Until the last word,” he agreed.

Wednesday, October 23
8
P
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M
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“You’re right on time,” said Sam Hill as he opened the door.

“I walked around the block so I wouldn’t be early,” said Frieda.

“You should have just come up,” he said.

“Next time, I will.”

Frieda shed her pea coat. Sam Hill hung it on a hanger in the closet by the door.

“You look good,” he said.

She wore a black A-line miniskirt, black tights, and a lavender stretch T-shirt, three-quarter sleeves. She’d changed outfits several times before the babysitter arrived, and would have continued the fashion show of her entire wardrobe had she not felt the urge (the urgent urge) to sprint to Sam Hill’s sublet, a universe (eight blocks) away from her apartment. She’d been thinking of nothing else— had for days—ever since they’d made the date. The laundry had gone unfinished. There was no food in the house. She’d missed a couple of delivery dates on frames. Who had time for work when she could, instead, lie down on her bed to think about kissing Sam Hill? Five minutes would turn into two hours. Time evaporated in thought. She’d lost mornings. Afternoons. Entire evenings after Justin went to bed. To stare at the ceiling in her bedroom and drift.

What would it be like?
she asked herself repeatedly. The first time with Gregg had been lovely. Perfect. She’d had a number of lovers by then, but hadn’t been shown much generosity by them. Gregg was so sweet and worried about her having a good time. Along with other things, she enjoyed the trust she felt with him. Over the years, they’d learned together. She’d grown up with Gregg, in so many ways. Naturally, in a marriage, she thought they were each other’s final sexual destiny. She had been his. But he wasn’t hers. Not that Sam Hill would be the last man she ever slept with. She wasn’t thinking of this as a first date that would lead to a second and, eventually, to the altar. Having the goal of marriage was laughable. She’d been married. She had a child. Her life experiences made the single-(and simple-) minded goal of lifelong commitment irrelevant. Tonight, with Sam Hill, Frieda was looking for a good time.

He’d been forthright when they’d made plans. “Would you like to come over to my apartment?” he asked on the phone.

“What about dinner and a movie?” she replied.

“You have to pay a baby-sitter, right?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the going rate?”

“Ten dollars an hour.”

“Dinner and a movie would be a poor use of time and money,” he said. “Wouldn’t you rather be alone together for four hours instead?”

It was a naked invitation to come over and have sex. For four hours. He hadn’t even offered to cook her dinner. Is this how people dated these days? Frieda wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. Nerves. If she’d Learned Nothing from Gregg’s Death, Frieda believed that formalities were often useless—especially if the formality at hand was getting to know a man before she fucked him.

Despite the clarity of her prime directive, Frieda was still anxious. Much of the edginess was forgotten when Sam opened the door. She hadn’t seen him for over a week. But when she beheld him again, she couldn’t believe how beautiful he was. He wore jeans, a faded red T-shirt. No shoes. He hadn’t agonized over his wardrobe choices. She focused on his face, anyway. Something about him, the skin, in particular, and his dark brown eyes and dark brows instantly drew her complete attention like a loud clap or the pop of a balloon. She was staring. How rude.

He said, “I love the way you look at me.”

She loved the way he looked at her. Like she were a magnet, as if she could draw him to her and he’d do exactly what she wanted without her having to say a single word.

“You really look good,” he said it again.

“So do you,” she said. “Here.”

Not wanting to arrive empty-handed, Frieda had brought Sam a gift. He unwrapped the present.

“Hey! Look at that,” he said, appreciatively. His framed review had turned out perfectly. “It looks awesome.”

She said, “Forget about the bill. My treat.”

“I accept, and thanks,” he said. “Would you like to sit?”

He gestured toward the couch. She could see it plainly from the doorway. She could see the entire studio from the doorway. She knew it was a sublet, and hadn’t expected much. Her expectations weren’t quite as low as the reality. A stove and refrigerator, a bed on a frame in one corner, the couch in the another. Kitchen, bedroom, and living room within four gray walls. The gray carpet on the floor had stains (but seemed clean, well vacuumed at least.) A TV, cable box, VCR, and stereo were arranged on a long console near the bed. Pots and pans hung from hooks in a peg-board over the stove. Like the carpet, the stove was clean of surface dirt, but marred with burn marks that couldn’t be washed away. The couch, where she was to sit, was pilly and frayed.

He put the framed review on the table and asked, “Would you like a Scotch?”

She hated Scotch. But coming out of Sam Hill’s mouth, in this dumpy sublet, a drink sounded like just the thing. She sat on the lumpy, orange couch. He solicitously poured, making sure he put in adequate ice, and brought the glass to her.

He sat next to her, his shoulder touching hers. The contact was sublime. Warm, like hot bread. She said, “Toast?”

“I’ll drink to that,” he said. He held up his glass. “A toast to toasting.” They clinked and drank.

The Scotch was awful, burning. “Tastes like lighter fluid,” she said.

“I’ve never had lighter fluid,” he said, nodding. “So I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Refill?” she said.

He poured her another shot. “Are you nervous?” he asked.

Frieda said, “Yes. About what might happen. I’ve been thinking about this constantly.”

“Me, too,” he said.

“Are you nervous?”

He said, “No. Just excited.”

Fearless, this Sam. “Who, or what, is Sam Hill?”

“He was a farmer from somewhere in New England who ran for public office in the late eighteen hundreds, but no one knew who he was or where he’d come from,” he said, finishing his drink. “He didn’t win.”

“Never ran again.”

“Faded further into obscurity,” he said. “He has a famous name for being an anonymous person.”

Frieda, draining her glass, decided she was wrong. She loved Scotch. It was her new favorite drink. She said, “I haven’t had sex in a year and four months, and that wasn’t real sex. You can’t have real sex with someone in the final stages of terminal cancer. I hope you’re not shocked by that. I never know how much people can take, which is why I talk about my husband’s death so infrequently. Hardly ever. In fact, never.”

She paused, noting his perplexed expression. Not repulsed. But definitely puzzled. Where was she going with this? She said, “My point is that it’s been forever since I’ve done it with any degree of abandon. And I need more Scotch, please.”

He said, “You’ve had enough,” taking her glass and putting it in the sink. It was only four paces from couch to kitchen. Ilene would plotz if she saw this place. Frieda was to have sex, for the first time in forever, in a shit hole.

“How long has it been for you?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, rinsing out the glasses and putting them in the drying rack by the sink. He didn’t let dishes sit. That was a good sign. The place
was
clean. No dust bunnies or lint. The kitchen orderly. She hadn’t yet seen the bathroom. It could be ugly in there.

Frieda repeated, “How long for you?”

He said, “I’m thinking.”

Didn’t seem like a question that required much thought. Frieda wondered if he were thinking about how to get this tipsy widow with a hard-on out of this apartment before she attacked him. Finally, Sam said, “The short answer is six months. But you gave me more information than a number. I want to do the same. The long answer would be that it’s been a couple years since I had sex with someone I cared about. I’ve had short-term relationships with a few women between her and you, but I could see the ending from the beginning, so the sex part wasn’t very satisfying. The last time was with the actor who’s playing Nancy in
Oliver!
It started after a party. She didn’t want to go home alone, so she took me with her. I never thought she liked me. To tell you the truth, I felt used.”

He said the “I felt used” part with mock sarcasm. Like he’d been mortally offended. A woman using a man? She couldn’t have been using him for money, or jobs. If she’d been using him for sex, that was promising.

“What’s her name?”

“Lynette,” he said. Seeing her reaction, he added, “I know. Bad name. But she’s a nice person. We’re on good terms.”

“Who was the woman you cared about?” she asked.

“That was Zina. She’s an actor, too. We were best friends, and decided to try a sexual relationship. That one didn’t work out because, frankly, she was too gross for me. She loves fart jokes, and burping in public. It’s hilarious in a friend. But not in a girlfriend. We’re still close. She’s got a chorus part in
Oliver!
”

“Have you ever had a long relationship?”

He said, “I lived with Deborah for two years. She’s a Jewish doctor’s daughter. A musician, a flutist. She wanted to get married and have a kid, but I was only twenty-four, and the sexual attraction wasn’t intense enough for me to want to commit for life. We’re still friends, too.”

“Let me guess. She’s playing in the orchestra at
Oliver!
”

“She is indeed.”

“I’ve got to see this show. It’s a cavalcade of your ex-girlfriends.”

He laughed. “There’s another one in this production, too. The ‘ripe strawberries, ripe’ woman.”

Frieda knew the part. In the movie, it was the first scene after the intermission. She sang the line in her best operetta voice. Sam cringed. He said, “I guess we know one thing for sure.”

“That is?”

“If I fall in love with you, it won’t be for your singing.”

Frieda said, “Another wee dram of Scotch?”

He demurred. “You seem drammed already.”

She was, and she liked it. “Why haven’t you been with anyone in six months?” she asked. “No available women left in the cast?”

Sam, still at the sink, poured her a splash and walked back over. He sat next to her again. His body leaning on hers was inebriating enough. She put the glass on the table.

He said, “The dry spell.” Silence. Sam Hill clearly liked to think before speaking. A good quality. Frieda bet he hardly ever said anything in haste that he regretted later. But it was unnerving to have to wait for an answer. Frieda had been raised to blurt. As a rule her family members spoke without thinking.

Sam said, “As you said, I’ve pretty much dated anyone I had an interest in within the company. And, with all the traveling we do, I just haven’t met anyone on the outside.”

She’d have to remember to ask him about ‘all the traveling,’ but she wanted to get to something else first. “You said, ‘between her and you.’ Meaning, you hadn’t been with anyone you cared about between Zina and me. So you’re saying you care about me.”

“I am.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I don’t?” he asked. “Don’t I?”

“Why should you?”

He said, “Unless you’ve completely misrepresented yourself, you’re kind, smart, and funny. And you frame beautifully.”

She said, “I don’t feel like I know you at all.”

He said, “But you’re comfortable with me.”

“Yes.”

“You’re attracted to me.”

She smiled.

He said, “You can’t see the ending from the beginning.”

Here, she had to pause. She flashed back to Ilene’s speech at Bouillabaisse. That Sam would be fun for a few months, a reinitiation in romance, and then Frieda would wake up, realize how inappropriate he was for a husband and stepfather. That Frieda would end it to find a suitable suitor, someone stable, with money.

She said, “Sing for me. Something from
Oliver!
”

“No,” he said.

“Recite some lines,” she said.

“I’m not giving you a performance, Frieda.”

She said, “Come on, Sam.”

He said, “You’ll have to pay to see it, just like everyone else. But I will show you something.”

He went to the closet and took her coat off the hanger. Rummaging on the table near the couch, he found a handkerchief, his wallet, his keys. He stuffed the items in the pockets of the coat.

“Put this on,” he instructed. She put it on. He said, “Go to the far corner.”

The room had only near corners (it was that small). But she went to the corner by the platform bed. He stood diagonally across from her, in the corner by the door. “Now,” he said, “come at me. Slow.”

Frieda walked toward Sam. He walked toward her, whistling, checking his watch, pretending to stare at the sky. They were just about to pass each other, when he bumped into her shoulder, knocking her off balance. He grabbed her under the arms, his hands rubbing the outsides of her breasts, steadying her, helping her get solid footing.

He said, “Forgive me, madam,” and bowed slightly.

Frieda said, “Not at all,” with an English accent. Not sure why.

He said, “Good evening,” and walked past her. She walked past him. When they were at opposite corners of the room, they turned to face each other.

He said, “Check your pockets.”

She reached into her coat. The handkerchief, wallet, and keys were gone.

Sam said, “Looking for these?” He held up the items, tossing them one by one on the bed.

She was awed. Honestly, she hadn’t felt a thing. She said, “Let’s try that again.” On the table, she found a
Newsweek,
a pack of gum and a MetroCard. She put them in the pockets of the coat. “This time, you’re not going to distract me by feeling me up.”

He smiled. “You noticed that.”

“Only a lot.”

“Shall we?”

They walked toward each other again. He bumped into her shoulder the same way. This time, instead of steadying her and copping a feel, he snared her around the waist, hugged her tightly against his chest and started kissing her.

They leaned into each other, kissing madly. He held her with both hands, cupping her jaw, controlling the movement of her head, rotating it to the left and right, inhaling the kiss. She’d laced her fingers behind his neck, loving the feel of his skin. His skin! It wasn’t particularly hot or soft. But it was alive with an energy that made touching him exquisite. His skin was one more mystery about him, like being from Maine, and being an actor, and his long silences. The kissing went on and on. She couldn’t stand for it any longer. She had to lie down.