Until the Real Thing Comes Along (11 page)

“Oh. Yeah.” He yawns noisily. “I feel like that sometimes when I clean the house really well and then a week goes by and no one even comes over. Nobody sees any of the casual arrangements of
stuff I left lying around to try to impress them. So I clean it all over again. I feel like Sisyphus in an apron.”

“It’s more than that, Ethan. It’s that I think, oh God, I’m going to be a woman sitting all by herself forever. It’s not going to happen to me; I won’t ever get to have a family. I will be in this painful part of life for a while and then I will be too old to have children and then I will be a spinster—oh, yes, people still think that way, yes they do!—and then I will start slowly getting ridiculous and then I will die alone and they will find me because of the smell. Oh God, Ethan, think of it, it will just be so embarrassing.”

“You know, Patty—”

“No. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that all my thoughts are black like this because I need to go to sleep. You’re going to say that it will all look different in the morning. But it’s not true.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“What were you going to say?”

I hear some muffled movement. I’ll bet he’s turning from his side onto his back. I’ll bet he smells good, like sleep and the muted leftovers of his exotically earthy cologne. I’ll bet his sheets are beautiful. Well, I know his sheets are beautiful, they always are, he orders them from a catalog for people with good taste. And a fair amount of money.

He sighs. “I was going to say … I was going to say I think about that too, I have that same fantasy. I just don’t think I’m going to meet him. Ever. I’m ready to give up.”

I hold very still.

“Patty?”

I make my voice get as calm and reasonable as I can, difficult to do with a heart rate of about 150 and a longing so strong it steals breathing space. “Ethan, don’t you see that there is a very good thing to do about this?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you just get me pregnant? It would give us such a good reason to live. It would leave something of us behind, it would matter more that we were here, it would.”

Silence. I take another step on this thinnest of ice.

“I know how you feel about children. Remember when we were sitting in the park by the playground that day and that little tow-headed boy came over and just stood in front of you for so long? I saw what happened inside you; I know that feeling, I
know
it. You should have seen your face, Ethan. This … softness. This light. In your head, you were tucking him in, laying his little cowboy robe at the foot of his bed, you were pushing his hair aside to kiss his little soapy-smelling forehead. You were doing something like that, weren’t you? Weren’t you?”

He sighs. “Digging worms.”

“What?”

“Digging worms, we were digging worms because I was taking him fishing. And I was going to teach him not to be afraid of worms because I am.”

“Right. See? Right.” I close my eyes, lean forward, huddle over the phone and speak into it as though it were my confessor: quietly, plaintively; and with an equal mix of truth and shame and hope. “Listen, Ethan. Your need to have children is every bit as strong as mine. Do you think an opportunity is just lying there,
drumming its fingers, waiting for you to say yes? You think you can just grab some woman when you’re ready and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea’? Something will be so wasted in both of us if we don’t have children. I really believe we’ll miss it all our lives. And who should
be
the mother of your child, Ethan? Who, if not me?” I take a deep breath, feel my toes curling inside my slippers. Well. So much for the even-handed delivery I’d had in mind. He probably hung up half an hour ago. “Ethan?”

“Where are you?”

“Home!”

“No. In your cycle.”

“Menstrual?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean? What if I were in the middle? What if I were ovulating?”

“Then … I’d come over.”

“You would? You mean—?”

“Yes.”

“This is
it
?, you’ll have a
ba
by with me?”

“Yes.”

“This is all the discussion we’ll have to have, we’ll just
do
it?”

“Don’t you think you should lower your voice just a bit?”

“Am I yelling?”

“Yes.”

“But this is—”

“Patty, I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, really. What do you want to do, decide now if he or she should play with guns? You’re right. We know each other. We don’t need … We
know
each other. We’ll just take it as it happens. We’ll work everything out. The main thing is, we’ll have a child. We’ll just do it. When you’re … you know, ready.”

“Ethan, I swear to God, I am exactly in the middle of my cycle. I’ve got an egg barreling down the pike, right in the strike zone, and it is a good egg. So to speak.” Naturally I have no idea if this is true or not. But I will be very, very good from now on. I’ll put a huge X on the calendar on the day I start. I’ll take my temperature every day. Everything.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Okay. God! Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll understand if we can’t … if we have to, you know, use a turkey baster. Maybe you should bring a magazine. Also a turkey baster.”

“Let’s see what happens.”

“Okay.”

I put the phone back in the cradle. I see that I am on my knees, my knuckles pressed into my mouth. No one has ever felt such a mix of so much.

“You … changed?” Ethan asks, when I open the door.

I look down at my black dinner dress. “This, you mean?”

He comes in, hangs up his coat.

“I assume you don’t ordinarily sleep in a dress. It’s a nice dress, by the way. Very flattering.”

“Thank you. I just … well … under the circumstances. I also, you know … took a bath. A little.”

He leans in, sniffs me. “Nice.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you nervous, Patty?”

“Me? No! No! Are you?”

“No!”

“Okay. So before we … do you want anything? You know. Drink? Something?”

“No thanks. But you, uh … you go ahead. If you want. A drink. I don’t mind. Well, of course I don’t mind, why would I mind?”

I open the refrigerator. “I have some leftover spaghetti.”

“Patty.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“Yeah. Yeah. So … cocoa?”

He sighs. “Come here.”

“Okay.”

I don’t move.

“Let’s just go lie down, all right? We’ll just … lie down. Next to each other. We’ll lie down first. And then … you know, we could talk.”

“Right. That’s good. Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“I … 
am
, you know, just a
bit
—”

“Me, too. I’m scared shitless.”

“I don’t know why!”

“Me either.”

“Well, I kind of know why.”

“Me, too.”

He crosses over to me, gently embraces me. I laugh. The sound is reminiscent of a braying donkey. I push away from him, step out of my heels, get a paper towel, and rub the lipstick from my mouth. “That’s better,” I say. And he kisses me. And I can feel each of us begin to relax into the other. I take his hand and lead him into the bedroom, where I have a single candle burning on the dresser.

“Oh, this is nice,” he says, stretching out on the bed.

“I guess you’re supposed to have fifty or sixty, all lit.”

“Fire hazard,” Ethan says. His eyes are closed. “Anyway, you get plenty of light from that one, it’s a good-sized candle.”

“So … I’m just going to get undressed,” I say.

He opens his eyes. I pull my dress over my head, stand before him in my new underwear which thank God I bought just last week. It’s a matching set. Black. Ethan doesn’t move. “I thought I might as well get it over with,” I say. “You don’t have to get undressed yet, though.”

“No, I will. I will.” He stands up, unbuckles his belt, steps out of his pants.

“Do you want me to hang those up?”

“Well, I did just get them.”

“Yeah, I thought they were new. Are they green? Or gray?”

“Greenish gray, I’d say.” He hands them to me. They are so light, but warm.

“Are these silk?”

“Silk and wool. Sixty-forty. Zegna. Do you like them?”

I nod. My throat is dry. His legs are so nice.

“I thought … you know, yeah, I liked them, too. So, uh … I
bought them! Obviously.” He smiles, pushes his hair back. He is a movie,
Beautiful Man Undressing
. Next comes his sweater. A cream color, softness itself, Mongolian cashmere, sure as my knees are becoming unreliable. And now here is his shirt, smelling faintly of him. “Barbera,” he says, gesturing at it with his chin. His arms are crossed over his chest. He looks like an inductee at an army recruitment center, except that his socks are too beautiful.

“Pardon me?” I say.

“Luciano Barbera. The shirt.”

“Oh! Well, it’s very nice.”

“I spend way too much money on clothes.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I know.”

I stand still, looking at him.

“So! I guess I’ll just get under the covers,” he says.

“Do you have an erection?”

“Jesus, Patty!”

“Well, I’m sorry. It’s just that … I was … you know, wondering.”

“Fine.”

“Well, do you?”

“…
Yes
, okay? Kind of. Keep talking, though, I’m sure we can get rid of it.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll just hang these up.”

I come back to the bed, slide in, remove my underwear, toss it overboard. As does Ethan. Then he reaches over and takes my hand, lies back, and closes his eyes.

“Nothing may happen this first time,” he says. “It doesn’t mean
any
thing if nothing happens. Against you. Well, against either of us, really.”

“Okay.”

I close my eyes, listen to the sound of us breathing.

“I just got this image,” Ethan says. His voice is lazy; relaxed, now.

“Of what?”

“Of my father. Huh. I don’t know why. I just all of a sudden saw him standing there.”

I open my eyes, look over at him. “You never talk about him.”

“I know.” He keeps his eyes closed.

“How come?”

“Oh…. He was … impossible. Impossible. You couldn’t love him. Well, you
did
love him, you couldn’t help it, but he didn’t want you to.”

“Why not?”

Ethan opens his eyes. “It’s not so uncommon. You don’t know about this stuff, you come from such a normal family. Although they’re so normal they’re abnormal.”

“I know; I’m lucky.”

“I love your mother. And your father.”

“They love you, too.”

“I was so nervous the first time I met them. And your father was so … I mean, wearing that chef’s hat, waving his king-size spatula over the grill, singing ‘Shangri-La.’ ”

I smile, remembering.

“Patty?”

“Yeah.”

Nothing.

“… Ethan?”

He rises up on one elbow, pulls the covers down from my breasts, regards them.

I wait a nervous moment, then start to pull the covers back up. “Don’t,” he says. And then touches me as only, only, only he can. And what happens next, and next, is similar to how you never forget how to ride a bicycle. Let me say only this: he is on me here, and here, and here, Ethan is, Ethan; and I am on him; and then he is in me, moving, moving, moving, and I hear myself talking—just low, just a little—until there is no more talking and no more moving, nothing but the sense of peace that comes from something like seeing a wide green field, quiet.

“You know,” I say, after a while, “no one would know you’re gay.”

“What’s that supposed to be, a compliment?”

“Well,
yeah
. I guess. I’m sorry.”

He kisses my forehead, then lies back against his pillow, sighs. “There’s so much you just don’t understand. That you
won’t
understand.”

I pick at a tuft on my bedspread. “I know.” And then, “God, Ethan, we did it.”

He turns to look at me. “Do you think there’s any way you’re …? Do you think we might have really started a baby?”

I think about this, feel a sense of wonder as an answer. Then, “Yeah,” I say. “I think we might have. We might have. Why? Are you sorry?”

“I’m not sorry. You know that I love you, Patty.”

“You’re supposed to say that
before
, so I’ll do it.”

“I do love you.”

“I know, Ethan. I love you, too.”

“I thought we should say that.”

“Yes. I’m glad we did.”

“Okay.”

“Should we sleep for a while? And then I’ll make you pancakes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“I just want to say … I just want to tell you that this is enough. I know what this is, I do. And it’s enough.”

He falls asleep first. And I watch him for a long time. Afraid, in a way, to move.

“Why are your pancakes so good?” Ethan asks, as he runs water over his plate. A nearly unnecessary act; there’s nothing left on it.

“First of all,” I say, “you have to know when to stop mixing. And you have to put vanilla in. And you cook them in a lot of butter and throw the first batch away because they’re disgusting.”

“Too much to remember.” He looks at his watch. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.”

I have a very strange
Father-Knows-Best
Feeling: Ethan, kissing me on the cheek before he leaves for work, the smell of coffee and maple syrup on his breath from the breakfast I made him. I’ll just finish the dishes, and then I’ll finish growing the baby.

Ethan closes the door behind him, then opens it again. “Patty?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think we should tell anyone about this yet.”

I say nothing, don’t move.

“It’s not because I’m having doubts or anything. I just … would like us to have it to ourselves for a while.”

I nod. I’m not sure what to make of this.

“For Christ’s sake, Patty, it’s ro
man
tic!”

“Oh! All right. I won’t tell anyone. I’m happy, though.”

“We’ll just wait and see, all right? We’ll wait and see if you are before we tell. And if you are, you can’t eat rare meat.”

“Why?”

“Something about a disease you can catch. A guy at work, his wife is pregnant, and she was told not to eat rare meat. Or to clean the cat’s litter box.”