Angels All Over Town (11 page)

“Give me a minute,” I said, heading to the bathroom to install my diaphragm. When I returned I lay beside him on the bed. He kissed me once, and then he was inside me before I had any idea that we were ready. He moved in slow, thrusting motions, and at intervals he whispered, “Is that okay, baby?”

“Yes,” I grunted back, trying to slide my arm between our bodies. He lay on top of me, not taking any of the weight on his own elbows. I couldn’t get a good breath. With one hand I began to lightly tickle him, and he began to squirm. He reached down to touch me, but instantly crashed into orgasm.

He gave me a look. “Did you come?” he asked.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I didn’t need to.”

Relieved, he kissed my shoulder.

“That was wonderful,” Joe said.

“It was,” I said hesitantly.

“Do you have a hard time coming?” he asked.

A difficult question. Not a hard time, exactly. But I have to get to know a person. Or I have to love him. But I’m afraid of egos. I hate to hurt feelings. I hate so much to hurt feelings that I have faked a couple of orgasms in my day. Who will ever know? That’s the way I thought the times I did it. But I knew. I lied. And honesty in bed seems crucial. So much is bared anyway, a lie seems magnified. It seems twice as harmful. But still, I am afraid of egos.

“No, I don’t always have a hard time,” I said carefully to Joe. “But my body has to get used to yours.”

“I did something wrong.” Sullen. Bad boy!

“You did not! You were wonderful, honestly. It’s very complicated.”

“Right. You went to Catholic school, and you can’t come until you’re married or at least engaged.”

No man had ever hit me with that assessment without hearing my entire history. It was a shockingly intimate moment. “That is it,” I said. “You look like the boy I made first communion with—but I’m not even Catholic anymore. I don’t even believe in God.”

“You don’t?” He pulled back a bit, shocked.

“No. You do?”

“Well, sure.” He sounded puzzled, as though nonbelief had never occurred to him. “If you’re not a Catholic, I guess you shouldn’t mind the ‘out of wedlock’ bit.”

“Listen, Joe. These things linger. My whole life, three things got drummed in: family, scholarship, and chastity.”

“Which ones do you have left?”

I lay on my back and thought about it. Leaving Juilliard, I had forsaken scholarship; messing around since the age of eighteen, I had forsaken chastity; and though I would not, would never, forsake my family, I had neither begun a new one nor succeeded in staying close enough to my old one.

“I guess I…” I began finally, feeling panicked and alone.

“You’ve always got family,” Joe said, wrapping his arms around me. “Didn’t your parents tell you that? No matter what happens, your family will always be there.”

Unless they die. Unless they move to New York and never even call you. Telling such things to Joe seemed impossible. Tears choked my throat so I wouldn’t have to.

“Shhh,” Joe said tenderly, licking the tears from my cheeks. “Husha, husha, little baby.” He stiffened as he soothed me, and presently he was gliding inside me again, kissing my damp cheeks, continuing to say “husha, husha,” even though I was no longer crying.

Living on different floors of the same building as your lover presents certain problems. Such as: do you spend every night together? Do you eat meals together, and if so, who cooks? What about the awkward feelings that arise when you meet at the mailboxes after a long day and want to go upstairs alone? What about when one person seems to spend all his time in
your
apartment, thus requiring
you
to clean and pick up, while his remains relatively uninhabited? What do all the neighbors think about all this?

“I think I am proving Monica’s worst suspicions about actresses,” I said to Joe one Sunday afternoon when we returned from brunch. “Did you see the way she looked at us?”

“Who the hell cares? Fuck her and everyone who looks like her. It’ll give her another chance to bitch, and Monica’s happy as a pig in shit when she’s bitching.” Joe dropped the paper on my table and dove straight for the sports section. “She’s jealous,” he said.

“Why? Because I have you and she doesn’t?” I asked, teasing.

“Frankly, yes. She’s made more than one play for me. After board meetings, down in the storage area. She’s a horny broad, and I doubt Chip has one clue about what to do about it.” He sat on my sofa.

I thought of Monica and Chip’s apartment, filled with homey Americana, and knew that Joe was exaggerating, if not lying. I smiled at him. “You’re such a riot,” I said.

“God as my judge,” he said, raising his right hand. He draped the sports section like a tent over his knees. “She’s after me.”

“Right.” I started unpacking one of the last boxes. Joe watched me crouch; I felt very sexy. I moved slowly, stretching to place things on my desktop, shifting my ass as I rummaged through the box. Joe and I had spent every Sunday morning for the last month together, and I loved the routine: brunch, an hour or two reading the
Times
, bed. Sex on Sunday mornings felt delicious and leisurely. I always came on Sunday mornings; Joe said it was because I knew I should be at Mass.

That Sunday Joe walked across the room; he reached down for my hand. Instead of rising, I pulled him down, and we undressed each other on the floor. Carpet fibers scratched my back. I thought suddenly, I’m
always
on my back. Lovemaking with Joe was nothing if not consistent: he was always on top. I tried to roll us over then, but he resisted. He lowered his head to my breasts.

“Why won’t you let me go on top?” I asked as soon as he had rolled off.

He looked surprised. “I’ll let you. It’s not a question of
letting
you.”

But I saw the way he avoided my eyes and knew I was right. He propped himself up on one elbow and stirred the things in my box.

“What have we here?” he asked, holding up a framed photograph of me, Lily, and Margo. It was ten or so years old; Margo still had braces, and Lily had her short-lived pixie cut. My father had taken it on the beach in front of our house. “You’re the prettiest,” Joe said, kissing the top of my head. “Which is the sister who lives in the city?”

“Her. Lily. The other one is Margaret.”

“I know, I know. Lily and Margaret, your two sisters. When am I going to meet them?”

“Good question,” I said, feeling sullen. At that moment I felt angry at Lily and Margo for their distance, angry at Joe for asking about them, angrier at Joe because shortly he would leave, as he did every Sunday, for dinner with his entire family at his mother’s house. I began to cry. Often after sex with Joe things would make me cry.

“Hey, what are you doing this afternoon?” Joe asked, reading my mind.

“My laundry. Reading next week’s scripts. Nothing.”

“Ma’ll kill me for not warning her, but how about coming to Norwalk for dinner? Everyone will be there, and I’ve been wanting to show you off.”

“I’d love to,” I said.

Joe’s mother and brothers lived in a ranch house in a neighborhood of similar ranch houses. Mrs. Finnegan and her two daughters greeted us at the door. Joe had called ahead to say I was coming, and he warned me: all three were avid
Beyond the Bridge
fans. They were dressed in Sunday’s best. Mrs. Finnegan wore a floral pantsuit over a ruffled blouse, and Joe’s sisters, Corinne and Erin, wore velvet dresses that strained across their ample bosoms.

“Oooh, hello, Una!” Mrs. Finnegan called gaily, clasping her hands. We were, after all, old friends from the Rose Garden Mall. She had tied a pink bow in her gray hair.

“Hello, Mrs. Finnegan,” I said, and she pulled my head down so I could kiss her.

Erin Mankiewicz, the elder sister, shook my hand vigorously. “I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to finally meet you. We have watched the show for—what, Cori?”

“Since grammar school at least,” Corinne said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet
you
,” I said. “I’ve met your mother, and your brothers, of course, and Joe has told me about—”

Joe, standing behind me, his hand on my waist, interrupted. “Jabber, jabber. What’s a brother got to do to get a few kisses around here?”

His sisters and mother swarmed on him like bees. “We’re having roast beef, Joey,” Erin said. “And little Joey brought you some pictures he did at school. Did you happen to remember the catcher’s mitt?”

Joe grimaced with anguish, then grinned. “You bet I did,” he said slyly.

“He’s such a joker,” Mrs. Finnegan said, turning to me, her arms draped around his neck.

We walked through the front door, directly into a small living room that was packed with people. Dan and Tim sat on the couch, two men sat in overstuffed chairs, and four kids were tussling on the floor. A golf tournament on the large TV screen cast green light on the viewers’ faces. The brown floral draperies were closed.

The men stood when we entered, and Joe made introductions. Stan Mankiewicz was Erin’s husband, and Paul Haggerty was Corinne’s. Joe rushed to sit between his brothers on the sofa. “Relax, fellas,” he commanded with a wink at me. “Ma and the girls want to take Una into the kitchen and pick her brain about the show.”

“Oh, he’s fresh!” cried Mrs. Finnegan.

We walked toward the kitchen. Around the house were various statues of Jesus and Mary, framed Mass cards for Mr. Finnegan (every time we came upon one of these, Mrs. Finnegan would strike her breast and murmur, “God is good”). There were calligraphed prayers on parchment. Ruffled cotton curtains were pulled across each window. The smell of roasting beef filled every room.

“Not very grand, but it’s home,” Mrs. Finnegan said. The sentiment was lovely, but already I was feeling claustrophobic. From the living room came hoots and shouts as someone sank a long putt. “His putter has a goddamn graphite shaft!” Joe yelled.

The house is dark, I thought. Electric lights were on everywhere, but very little natural sunlight penetrated the curtains.

In the cramped kitchen all three Finnegan women donned aprons and began to work, dodging each other, moving in mystical rhythms no doubt established over long years of preparing roast beef dinners while the Finnegan men watched golf tournaments. In what appeared to be an elaborately choreographed ritual, they crisscrossed the kitchen at least three dozen times. They opened canned peas, stirred flour into the roasting pan to make gravy, poured water into the coffeemaker, frosted a chocolate cake, sharpened knives, stirred up brown bits from the bottom of the pan, tasted things, and asked me endless questions about the show:

“How did you get the part?”

“Will Delilah ever marry Beck?”

“What’s this new thing, with Delilah being a psychiatrist?” All three women hated psychotherapy, believing that it taught patients to hate their mothers.

“Are the Grants Catholic?”

“Thank God Delilah had that baby, even if she was out of wedlock, instead of aborting.”

“What’s Stuart MacDuff like in real life?”

“Do you think you’ll ever go into the movies?”

“Why do you do commercials for
those
garbage bags instead of
these
garbage bags?”

I sat at the kitchen table drinking sweet red wine. Erin and Corinne, hungry for information, paused now and then, their eyes sparkling.

“Have you ever been married, Una?” Mrs. Finnegan asked. “In real life, I mean.” She showed none of the deference she had that day at the mall; here she was on solid ground, in the midst of her five grown children. She kept her eyes on me.

“No, I haven’t.”

“The kids getting married today have such an advantage,” she said. “The church provides counseling. That’s something no psychiatrist understands.”

“Like what Paul and I went through,” Corinne said.

“Even better! Father gave a sermon at early Mass a week or so back, and he told about how we’ve entered the computer age. The young man and woman fill out very thorough questionnaires, takes about an hour and a half, giving their innermost thoughts on all sorts of problem areas—finances, sex, nuclear war. Then the forms are handed in to a computer in New Jersey, and the computer figures out which areas they’re weak in. As a couple, I mean. You’re Catholic, aren’t you Una?”

“Well, no.”

Mrs. Finnegan was about to speak, but Erin cut her off. “Ma,
computers
don’t figure out problems. People do.” Then, to me, “Stan’s a programmer.”

“Oh,” I said.

“But anyway,” Mrs. Finnegan went on, “the couple goes through six months of counseling, with the computer and Father, and by the time their wedding day comes, they are
ready
.”

The kitchen walls pressed in, until the room was as close as a suitcase, trapping me, the three Finnegan women, and the smell of roast beef. I excused myself to go to the bathroom. Sitting on the fuzzy gold toilet seat cover, I pressed my forehead against the cool tile. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the golden toilet paper holder with two ornate rosebuds guarding each end of the roll. The Finnegans used patterned toilet paper. This is nothing like my house, I thought. Nothing like my family. In this house the women cook the dinner and the men watch golf. In this house, you have to unscrew two golden rosebuds just to remove the empty toilet paper roll. In my house my mother cooked the dinner and my father, when he was home and not suffering from Black Ass, did the dishes. My sisters and I studied or played together. My mother never owned an apron; she owned an easel and watercolors. Our house was quiet. There weren’t crucifixes and religious artifacts all over the place. When we cooked roast beef, the smell stayed in the kitchen.

Joe knocked on the bathroom door. He did not say, “Are you all right?” Instead he said, “Hurry up—I have to take a whiz before Hale Irwin tees off.”

I sat on the toilet, my head in my hands, and knew: if I had finished Juilliard, this would not be happening. I would not be sitting in a bathroom while two rooms away three of my fans argued over the doneness of a rump roast. I would not be listening to my lover telling me to “shit or get off the pot” in order that he be able to catch the tee-off. If I had graduated from Juilliard I would be happily married to a man who loved me, a kind intellectual who would speak softly, who would gather my mother and sisters with me to his heart and keep us together. Who would be a father to my children. Like my father, Joe was imperious, full of his own greatness, and had the makings of a patriarch. But those were not qualities I cared about.