Crossroads (12 page)

S
EAN
wasn't my type. I was fairly certain of that right away. He liked to get stoned and go to a film in the evening, but Mark liked to slave away in a tie and shirt sleeves, trying to save the poor. Sean had as much in common with Mark as Hollywood had with the Bronx, but I decided to see him, if only to keep my mind off other things. We saw one another frequently but we didn't become lovers, and I knew we'd gone through the kind of ambivalence men and women go through before they settle into becoming friends.

I knew I would never fall in love with him. You can always tell when you're going to fall in love with someone, and I could tell that Sean wasn't the kind of man I'd fall in love with. He was too uncomplicated and easygoing for me to fall in love with. He took things too much in stride. I wasn't even sure a person could fall in love in the city. I knew it was difficult to stay in love in the city. But to fall in love you have to stand still, and how do you stand still in a city where nothing stands still?

One night after dinner, Sean wanted to go down by the
Hudson to see the sunset. “What for?” I asked. “A New York sunset is just pollution.”

Sean smiled his crooked half-smile. His blue eyes, almost turquoise against his blue shirt, tried to figure out what I wanted. “All right. We'll do whatever you want.”

I didn't know what I wanted to do, so we went down to the river. Sean lent me his copy of the
Voice
, which I sat on while he sat on the grass. He had met with Arthur Hansom that afternoon and was excited about his new job as an assistant director. “You know, I'll probably be going to L.A. soon.” The sunset looked boring to me. A rather mottled shade of orange. “I've got to take care of locations, casting, all kinds of details. And then maybe I'll get a chance to direct.”

“Oh, I didn't know you wanted to direct.” He wore pale blue socks and jeans, and as he rested, leaning back on his arms, his pants rose up in such a way that I could see the skin between his socks and his pants.

“Everyone wants to direct, unless you really want to act. I want to make something that's all mine.” For some reason I couldn't take my eyes off the small patch of very white leg. It made me uncomfortable to think of this large, handsome man with such a white, skinny, hairless leg, the kind of leg you'd expect to see on a polio victim, a withered useless limb.

It was at that moment, as I stared at the white leg, that the rat ran by us, or rather around us. It started from a tree not far from Sean and I saw it in the corner of my eye. It was your average brown, filthy New York City rat, and I thought I saw its white tooth, one huge, white, pointed tooth, as it raced by. I jumped up, screaming, “Oh my God, did you see that? It ran right by us.”

Sean, who had also seen it, jumped up too, not because of the rat but because of me. “It's gone,” he said.

“Ugh, it makes me sick. I knew we shouldn't have come down here. Mark and I never came down here.”

Sean looked at me rather somberly. “Well, I'm not Mark. Come on, let's go somewhere else.”

I glanced down, afraid that I'd see the rat at Sean's foot, staring up at his pale white leg, but I was relieved to see that both the rat and Sean's flesh were out of sight. When we got back to Broadway, Sean said, “Come on. I want to take you somewhere.”

“Where?”

Sean took me by the arm and led me toward Columbus. “It's a surprise. Don't you like surprises?” He smiled, almost to himself. “No more horses, no more smashing cars. And I'm solvent again.” When we came to Baskin-Robbins, Sean stopped. “I'm treating you to ice cream.”

“That's the surprise?”

“O.K., so I'll take you to the Four Seasons when I get my first paycheck, deal?”

I said it was a deal.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?”

I thought for a moment. “Maybe I should pay for this. You just got the job.”

“Look, you aren't under any obligation. What flavor?”

I pondered the options. “Chocolate,” I said definitely, after a moment of silence.

He waited. “What kind of chocolate? They've got a dozen kinds of chocolate in there. Marshmallow Magic, Rocky Road, Fudge Ripple . . .”

I raised my hands. “I don't care. Anything chocolate.”

He put his hands obstinately on his hips. “What d'you mean, you don't care? You have to make up your mind. What d'you want?”

“Really, it doesn't matter.” He was getting on my nerves.

“Of course it matters. What you want always matters.”

Mark never asked me about ice cream. He asked me about what I thought of the latest Supreme Court decision or the volunteer army or the budget for the new administration, but
if I said chocolate, he'd never say what kind of chocolate. He'd say that in the grand scheme those decisions were unimportant.

“It matters?”

“Of course it matters. What you want is what you feel. You want a sweater because you feel cold. You want a mint julep because you feel hot and sticky . . .”

I'd read somewhere that the lovelorn should eat chocolate because chocolate has an enzyme that you release when you're in love. I thought very hard. Marshmallow Magic sounded too illusory, and I'd had my fill of the bittersweet. I wanted something with strength and texture, yet at the same time gentle and smooth. “Jamoca Almond Fudge.”

“Is that all?” I nodded and he smiled encouragingly. “Wait here.” He went inside, took a number, flashed it to me, and signaled that there were three ahead of us. In a few moments he returned with two cones. His was yellow.

“What'd you get?” We strolled toward Central Park.

“Banana Republic.” I made a face. “Here, try it.” We lapped quickly at the cones, which in the summer heat were already beginning to run in little rivulets.

We exchanged cones but I didn't like the Banana Republic at all. “I like the name, though.”

“Yeah.” His tongue worked quickly around the cone. “Makes me think of torrid, dangerous places that aren't New Jersey. The only flavor I won't try is Bubble Gum.” He fumbled for napkins that were in his pocket. We reached the parkside and sat down on a bench.

“What about Peanut Butter and Jelly?”

He pulled out the napkins. Taking my cone again, he gave it a few licks, bandaged it, and handed it back to me. “Oh, I tried it once, but I was in California. I didn't know what I was doing.”

When we'd finished our cones and wiped our hands, he said, “Ready?”

I said, “Ready.” But we didn't go anywhere.

We sat, staring ahead of us at the traffic zipping uptown, at the landmark buildings across the street set against the darkening sky. Neither of us made a motion toward leaving. When he reached across the bench and pulled me toward him, I was already reaching for him. He pulled me to him, took my chin in his hand, and I was already sliding into his arms. And when he raised my chin and kissed me, my mouth was already turning toward his mouth. I was aware of how sticky our hands, our lips, were from the ice cream. Of how sweaty we were from the heat. Our teeth accidentally banged together when our mouths first met. We tried it again. Our noses met. A hair from his mustache tickled the lining of my nose. Our overbites didn't quite mesh. It wasn't a perfect kiss, but it was a kiss, and I kissed him back for a long time.

Afterward he held me. His beard rubbed my cheeks. Our sticky fingers intertwined. His heart beat too fast and he couldn't hide the fact that it was something he'd wanted for a while. “We should go,” he said. We both agreed we should go, but we just sat there.

Two Hispanics passed us, smoking a joint. They whistled and caressed one another in ridiculous ways, mocking us. “Let's go back to my place,” I said.

We walked to my apartment in silence, our feet shuffling along in stride. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what was the right thing to do. I didn't know what I felt or what I wanted to feel. But I knew too many months had passed since Mark left me and that it was time to begin to go on.

We'd hardly said a word as we walked back to my apartment and we didn't say anything when we got inside. I flicked on the overhead light and Sean flicked it off behind me. When I turned toward him, he placed his palm under my chin. “Ever since I met you,” he said, “I've wanted to make you relax.” He kissed me on the lips.

Gently he unbuttoned my shirt. “I better go to the bathroom,” I whispered. But Sean shook his head. He told me I wouldn't need any birth control, not right now. “I just want to make you relax. That's all I want to do right now.”

So we went into my room and I lay back on the bed. Sean took off his shirt. “Now just relax,” he said again. He stroked my hair, my cheek, as I nestled into the pillow. “I want you to forget about everything,” he told me as he kissed my eyes, my neck, my mouth. He took off my shirt and let his hand slide over my breasts, my legs. “I just want you to be comfortable,” he whispered. He unbuttoned my pants and rubbed my belly. He kissed my breasts gently and then his lips moved down to my belly. I closed my eyes.

For the first time in months I forgot where I was. He told me to relax as he kissed my stomach, my thighs. So I relaxed until I thought I was falling asleep. Until it seemed my body grew heavy like a stone and I didn't know if I was moving or being moved. I relaxed until I thought I was made of lead, and then, when I knew I couldn't relax anymore, I began to feel lighter and lighter. I felt so light that my hand, gripping Sean's shoulder, flew up to my mouth to stifle a cry. I was light and floating. I took a deep breath of air. I was like some anaerobic form of life that floated up from the bottom of the sea and didn't die. I felt myself emerge, feeling lightheaded as a mutant strain.

I must have dozed off for a few moments. When I woke, I found Sean resting but awake at my side. Then I got up, went into the bathroom, and found my diaphragm. It seemed dusty to me from disuse, like some old relic you'd come across in your grandmother's attic. When I got back in bed, I leaned on my elbow beside Sean. I began kissing him gently on the mouth as he dozed; my hand reached down, caressing him. “I'm not satisfied yet,” I told him. Sean pulled me down toward him. We made love furiously and then, when we were finished, when we were really spent, Sean cradled my head in his hands.
“Now,” he said softly, “you should be able to sleep.”

But while he slept, I didn't sleep. Not at first. I lay still, my head cradled against his shoulder, thinking how I was in a strange state of peace. The kind of peace that does not need to sleep. I lay there fully awake, thinking about my amorous history.

The nature of desire has always been a mystery to me. In high school I dated big, stupid football players. The kind you had to brush up on your hand signals before you could go out with them. I had nothing to say to these Neolithic creatures and yet I desired them. I wasn't completely inexperienced when I met Mark. I'd made my first pathetic sexual attempts in the boiler room of the
Leonardo Da Vinci
, en route to spending my junior year abroad studying Roman piazzas, with a deckhand who smelled like salami and wanted to paint frescoes like Michelangelo. He also had a penchant for oral sex, and so we crossed the Atlantic, lapping at one another while the engines churned away.

And then I finally lost my virginity in an MIT dorm with a college boyfriend named Ralph Rothman. Neither of us had ever had sexual intercourse before, not all the way, and our first attempt failed because Ralph put Vicks VapoRub on his penis as a lubricant and he came to bed smelling of eucalyptus; within moments he was writhing in pain. Our second attempt, a few days after Ralph healed, was an improvement, only because it was less dramatic.

With Mark sex wasn't really something you did with your body. You had to use your mind, your eyes, your words. Sometimes he seemed to like seeing me more than he liked touching me. In the midst of the most complex problems of contractual law, he'd ask me to remove all my clothes above the waist. And I'd sit, trying to solve urban-housing dilemmas, worried about low-income units, while Mark wrote briefs, pausing to examine my breasts. Occasionally he'd walk over, touch them, then go back to his books. In some way he sealed me to him.

 

We overslept the next morning, and woke when the phone rang. I knew it must be Mr. Wicker or his secretary, calling to see why I was late. “Oh, God,” I muttered to Sean as I reached for the phone, “it must be my office.”

It was Mark. He said he had to see me, that it was important. “You don't sound happy to hear from me,” he said. I told him his timing had always seemed strange. Sean sat up, kissed me on the shoulder, and headed for the shower.

“I want to see you,” Mark said again. I told him that if it was about a divorce, I would get in touch with my lawyer. “No,” he said flatly, “it's not about a divorce. I just want to see you.”

That evening we met at seven o'clock at the Echo Inn, a small bar in Little Italy. I'd prepared myself mentally to wait for Mark. To my knowledge and recollection he had never been on time to meet anyone. He always used to send flowers on my birthday and on our anniversary because he knew at least flowers would arrive on time. But at seven o'clock sharp, Mark was waiting for me.

He sat in the booth in the back of the dimly lit bar, his jacket removed, tie undone, a shirt collar slightly frayed. He started to get up to kiss me on the cheek, but I motioned for him to keep his seat. Still he maneuvered a kiss before I had a chance to sit down.

Mark liked the blouse I wore. I liked his tie. He liked my hair. “You look great. You really do.” He reached across for one of my hands but I pulled away.

The waitress hovered near our table. Mark signaled her impatiently. “Just a minute, folks.” She disappeared with an armful of dirty dishes.

“I spent some time in the country this summer with Jennie Rainwater. Funny you never met her.”