What Nora Knew (16 page)

“Five minutes,” I said.

“I have patients in an hour.”

“Fine. Let’s go bounce on mattresses.”

He pecked me on the cheek. Grandmother-style.

The mattress gallery at Bloomingdale’s is dimly lit in this kind of bluish, kind of grayish light. I guess so the customers can simulate bedtime. Only the mattresses are well lit; spotlights are aimed at each one so the entire room looks
like a landing dock for large, white space pods. I’m sure the salespeople are on commission because as soon as you step within spitting distance of a mattress, they all converge, asking to help, asking if you have questions, suggesting you stretch out and see how the mattress feels. A woman who introduced herself as Mina got to us first. We were standing by the first mattress in the gallery. Mina was tall, attractive, her sleeveless, navy dress clean, simple; something about her manner was reminiscent of a college professor. A lot like Russell, only in the guise of a Bloomingdale’s saleslady. “Any questions?” she said. The other customers were all couples. Maybe that’s why Russell wanted me along; he’d have felt naked without a date. “Stretch out and see how it feels,” Mina said.

I turned over the price tag. “Holy shit!” I said.

Mina smiled. She was wise, patient. “That’s our top-of-the-line Kluft. Joma wool. Talalay latex. Calico-encased spring unit.”

I showed the price tag to Russell. “Holy shit!” he said.

“Seriously. I have to try this,” I told Russell. “I need to know what a thirty-six-thousand-dollar mattress feels like.”

“Is it for both of you?” Mina asked.

“For him,” I said.

“For me,” he said.

Russell and I lay down alongside one another, bouncing our shoulders a little, staring at the ceiling.

“Excellent,” Russell said.

“Excellent,” I said.

“Anything for anything less?” Russell said.

“Hi!” Kristine said as we sat up from the excellent Joma-wool, Talalay-latex Kluft. “Things are slow. I took a break. How’s this one?”

“Great,” I said. “The price includes a three-bedroom condominium.”

Russell stood and whispered something to Kristine.

“Sorry,” she said. “Not for mattresses. But maybe a discount on a tie someday.”

“What about the kind you can bounce on with a glass of red wine?” I asked Mina. “Can we try that?”

“No,” Russell said. “It’s impossible to flip a Tempur-Pedic.” Russell’s a big believer in mattress flipping. Something about dead skin and dust. “Half my patients are people who tried to flip Tempur-Pedics.”

I said, “Maybe they were drunk from red wine.”

Russell and Mina walked on ahead. Kristine and I followed.

“A chiropractor!” we heard Mina chirp. “So you appreciate the importance of a good mattress.”

“Not thirty-six thousand dollars’ worth,” I said to Kristine.

“Wait. I’ve got to try that.” She headed back to the Kluft. I joined Russell and Mina next to a king-size Shifman Handmade Luxury Plush Pillowtop. You can fall asleep by the time you finish saying the names of these mattresses. “How much is this one?” I asked.

“Hand-tufted,” Mina said.

“Seven thousand,” Russell said.

“Exciting. You’ve already saved twenty-nine thousand dollars,” I said.

We tried the Shifman.

“Not bad,” Russell said.

“Feels just like the other one,” I said.

“I liked the first one,” Russell said.

“You two talk,” Mina said, walking away to give us a moment of privacy in a bed-filled room filled with other couples sharing private moments.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to spend thirty-six grand on a mattress,” I said.

“If you amortize it out over the course of fifteen years it’s only—” He stopped.

“You just did the math, right?”

“Right.” He said, “My ex-girlfriend had a Stearns and Foster that felt fine. And the girlfriend before her had a Sealy that couldn’t have been expensive, and that felt fine, too.”

“Thanks for sharing. How was the sex?”

“You two just had sex?” Kristine said, looming over us. Russell got up, waved down Mina, and walked over to her in the Sealy section. Kristine spread out on the Shifman with me, the two of us side by side, gazing upward like we were lounging on a beach.

“Why do mattress names always begin with an
s
?” I asked.

“Why are mattresses always on sale?” she asked.

“Russell was just telling me about his ex-girlfriends’ mattress brands.”

“Congratulations on dating Mr. Insensitive.”

“He’s not insensitive. He’s honest.”

Kristine and I looked at each other. She looked exasperated. “There’s honest. And there’s rude. Honestly, Molly, sometimes I wonder about you.”

“Stop wondering.”

“I once read this thing that said if a person’s snoring and keeping you awake, you should clap your hands over their face. That the noise will make them change positions and stop snoring without waking them.”

“You won
It’s Academic,
right? Your team won?”

“So I’m staying over at this guy’s and he’s sound asleep going at it full throttle like a beluga whale, and I clap my hands over his head.”

“What happened?”

“He opened his eyes and told me I was insensitive.” Kristine sat up. I sat up. I saw Russell in animated conversation with Mina. Good Lord. Was he flirting with the mattress lady? Maybe hoping for
her
Bloomingdale’s discount? Kristine must have also noticed. She gave Russell a look. “I’m sorry, Molly, but no woman wants to hear about the previous girlfriend’s taste in mattresses.” She slid off the bed, said she had to go back to her department to sell sofas. “Maybe your boyfriend should buy a Bill
Pullman
sleeper sofa.”

Kristine left. I interrupted Russell’s exchange with Mina, the two of them going on and on about spines and support and how she loved that he’s a chiropractor and really understands.

While lying next to him on the Sealy, I told him he was
rude and insensitive and no woman wants to hear about the previous girlfriend’s taste in mattresses.

I went back to my office mad. He went back to his office mad. I’m glad I wasn’t the patient whose neck he was cracking next. I can’t even recall how things escalated or why I was angry. I just knew that I was right and Russell was wrong so he’d have to be the one to call and apologize. I bet he had no clue what
my
mattress brand was. I sure couldn’t. I just knew it began with an
s
.

I conducted a mental inventory of what clothing items I’d left at his apartment and how I’d retrieve them, versus could I live without them? I had a key. I could sneak in while he was at work, toss my belongings into a plastic grocery bag, and haul my ass out of there. Or I could ask Russell to leave my things downstairs with his doorman and I’d pick them up the next time I visited the West Side. Which might be never. Or maybe he could drop
my
things with my doorman at the same time he picked up
his
things from my doorman and . . . I resolved to never again leave personal items at a boyfriend’s apartment.

I was surprised when he didn’t call that night. Russell’s not keen on conflict. It’s his nature to smooth things over, clear the air, talk things out, or at the very least deny them.

I went across the hall to hang out with Angela, but she was rushing to get ready for a date with her swim coach. She answered the door holding an open bottle of wine. I’d never seen her dressed so
girlie
. Pink halter dress. Pink sandals. “I think tonight’s the night I learn the backstroke,” she said.
She sounded all pink and happy. “Don’t call the cops if you hear screaming.”

I spent the evening watching
Sleepless in Seattle
for the umpteenth time, crying at the ending like I always do, but wondering if I really did understand what Nora was saying.

The day before the Bloomingdale’s fight, Deirdre summoned me to her office. Even by her standards of low necklines, she’d managed to outdo herself. I sat across her glass-topped desk praying she didn’t cough or sneeze, causing her breasts to come flying out at me. Aside from her usual neatly aligned notepads, pens, and laptop, three items were positioned in front of me: what looked like a black metal lipstick tube, a black cigar case, and a short-handled plastic bottle scrubber. “Can you guess what these are?” Deirdre asked. I was about to say a lipstick, a cigar holder, and a bottle scrubber when she said, “Vibrators.”

Oh, the twinkle in her eye, the devilish grin! She removed the lipstick cap to reveal a rubber semblance of a red lipstick and pressed the bottom of the tube. We both sat there watching the rubber lipstick vibrate. Deirdre pressed the
button again and then a third time, causing the little bugger to speed up each time. If it were a real lipstick, only a clown could apply it.

“Emily discovered these,” she said. She removed the top of the cigar case, unveiling a rubber mascara wand, slightly too large for a real mascara wand and with bristles I wouldn’t want anywhere near my vagina. Again, Deirdre made it vibrate once, twice, at three speeds. I did not want to ask just where Emily discovered these cosmetically disguised vibrators. The bottle scrubber, it turned out, was supposed to be a blush brush and was the scariest of the three. “Do you know what these are for?” Deirdre asked.

Talk about your awkward questions. “I have a pretty good idea,” I said.

“They’re designed to fool people so you can toss them in your purse and carry them everywhere. Or leave them on your nightstand without worrying what your cleaning lady might think.” Good to know. The day I hire a cleaning lady, I’ll run right out to buy vibrating cosmetics. “But best of all”—there was more?—“you can take them on an airplane.”

Why?
I wanted to ask.
To fly solo in the mile-high club?

“Emily suggested they’d be a perfect story subject for you.” It’d be fair to say that by this point I was pretty much speechless. Not that Emily’s contribution to my career opportunities was a total surprise, at least not since the angry note I found deposited on my chair:
You stole my 92Y panel! Thanks for nothing!
Deirdre pushed the three vibrators closer toward me. “Let’s see if you can get these through a security scanner,” she
said. “Then women will know if they can grab a lipstick and hop on a plane.” Deirdre loved this assignment. Her smile was amused. Mine was insincere.

“You want me to fly somewhere?” I said. Maybe I could pick the location.

“I want you to get past security,” Deirde said. “The courts downtown have similar scanners. See if you can get through. Cheaper than a plane ticket.”

“Yes, and if I get arrested, I’ll be that much closer to a jail.”

Deirdre sat back, pleased with herself. “I appreciate when my staff members come up with ideas for one another. It fosters a supportive work culture.”

I picked up the vibrators, stood to leave. “Now I’ll have to come up with a book for Emily to review. I hear Proust is snappy.”

“Tuesday deadline?” Deirdre said.

“If not sooner,” I said.

When I returned to my desk, I didn’t bother looking to see if Emily was in her cubicle. I knew she was and I knew she was listening in on her side of our shared wall. “If you used these first, I’ll kill you!” I said.

*  *  *

I didn’t randomly choose a courthouse. I gave my options considerable thought. Family court? No, too embarrassing if I got stopped. There might be children around. Criminal court? Also unappealing. There might be criminals around. After ruling out the Supreme Court—it just felt
wrong
—and
its appellate division, the one I can never understand, I settled on the civil court building. Landlords suing tenants. Insurance companies suing everyone. Nonthreatening legal activities.

Friday morning I headed down there first thing. I figured a Friday would be less crowded, fewer cases being heard so the judges could head out to their weekend homes early. I didn’t want the line to be so short that the scanner guards would have nothing better to do than focus on me and my handbag, nor so long that if they did detain me, hold up my blush brush, and holler out, “Okay! Who’s trying to sneak a vibrator into court?” there’d be a large crowd witnessing my humiliation. How would I respond to a “Hey! This isn’t a lipstick!” What would I say to a “Will the lady who owns the vibrating mascara please step out of line?” I’d stay right where I was, look around accusingly at the other women in line, and make a face like
How could you! In a public courthouse yet!
And what if my vibrating cosmetics did pass through security? What if they caught on? I’d hate to think what might be taking place in the state bathrooms, let alone the federal ones.

Those were my thoughts while waiting for my turn. A man in a dashiki was dumping his keys and wristwatch into a small plastic bin. A woman who had to be a lawyer—not only was she wearing a suit, but she was wearing pantyhose in the middle of July, for crying out loud—set a leather briefcase on the table. Maybe she had a vibrator tucked inside, a big ol’ honking Rabbit. My own big ol’ honking Rabbit was
hidden in a pouch beneath my bed with its relatives, the dust bunnies. I only used it between boyfriends and preferred a boyfriend to a Rabbit.

Pre-Bloomingdale’s, Russell and I had joked about christening his new mattress, how we’d have to spend a great deal of time breaking it in. It was important to him that I help choose the mattress; he wanted me to be comfortable, too. Maybe Russell was content to sit at home when I’d rather go out. Maybe I could barely remember why we were drawn to each other in the first place, or that at times it seemed all he needed was someone, not necessarily
me.
But he was sweet. Thoughtful. Reliable. And I was a few months from turning forty. Good reasons to hang on to Russell and keep my Rabbit under the bed.

The line moved forward. With more than a little trepidation I placed my handbag on the roller belt, then watched it travel merrily on its way right after a backpack and ahead of a long, zippered canvas bag that looked suspiciously like a gun case. One of the guards informed us we could keep our shoes on. Good news. If I ever cross paths with that man with the string coming out of his shoe, it won’t be pretty.