“Will it make me cry?”
“You tell me.” The backs of her knees hit the side of the bed. “Without opening your eyes, lie down.”
“Lie down where?”
“On the bed.”
She lay down.
“No, all the way, like you’re on the bed. Feet, too.”
She lay down on the bed, feet too. He climbed on top of her, nestling, grinding her, kissing her neck, her mouth. Her arms went around his neck.
“No,” he said quietly, “Reach up with your arms over your head.”
“Why? I can’t touch you?”
“Just reach up, Larissa.”
She reached up with her arms over her head and…
Brass rails!
She opened her eyes, tilted her head back. “You got me a headboard?” It was a high, curved, sleigh-bed-design brass headboard with nice thick strong brass rails.
He was beaming. “I got you a headboard. And a footboard. Just in case.” He laughed, raising his eyebrows. “What do you think? You like?”
“Oh, Kai…”
“Does this make you happy? A big brass bed?”
“Oh…”
“Does this make you cry?”
“Oh…”
“Grab on, baby,” he whispered. “And hold on tight.”
What is it like to spend your hours in deceit? There is no gesture big or small, no word big or small, no thought, no breath that can be made with a clear, unmanipulated heart. The vigilance is 24/7. There is nothing that can, or must, escape your attention.
She was afraid of Kai’s smell in her car. What if someone had seen her on the back of his bike like a skull and cross-bones flag flying down to the Deserted Village, wind in her hair? What if she bought something in a place she wasn’t supposed to be in? What if she bought something she shouldn’t have bought, a see-through bra Jared had never seen, a black silk thong to drive a man to distraction? What if she was gaining weight from the sushi she kept having in Kai’s bed, and the ice cream from his freezer, and the sugar in the two cups of coffee with cream she drank with him? What if she left a receipt for the sushi, a wrapper from a gum she didn’t chew, a piece of candy she didn’t eat on the floor of her car? What if a CD in the changer was one she never listened to?
What if—and this was a frightening what if—Jared opened the statement from her gynecologist and examined the details more thoroughly than usual and saw that in addition to an exam and a blood test and a cervical smear there was also a script for a six-month supply of birth control, matched by the billing statement for the prescription account they paid into? How could she explain to Jared that suddenly at forty she decided to go back on the pill as if she were a slutty college student without a boyfriend? What did married women who hadn’t been on the pill in seventeen years need to be on the pill for? Last time she was on the pill was before Emily was born. Now, she kept that pink wheel of 28 mother’s little helpers hidden deep inside her cosmetic drawer, in a blue silk bag that contained the suede brush.
Can you hide? Isn’t anyone watching? Thank God no one was watching, and you could maintain the shell of what was, though all the things that made you you had gone, replaced by another heart that beat and pumped blood for someone else.
On the theater stage, Larissa smiled and gave suggestions. “No, no Trevor,” she said. “When you, as Benedick, have Don Pedro say to you, Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face, so full of frost and storm and cloudiness? you cannot while you’re hearing it, be chewing gum, grinning, and making eyes at Lynnette over in the corner. Try, Trevor, try as hard as you can, to have a February face. Otherwise you will not sell your character to the audience. Do you know how to have a face full of frostiness? Like this.”
When Evelyn called, Larissa nodded into the phone and said, Lunch? Sure, when? Oh, no, not then. I’ll call you. When Maggie called, she said, Mags, I’m running out, can I call you back? Che wrote: “I know something is terribly wrong in your life because you haven’t written me for so long and in your last letter you were so far away you might as well have been on the moon, and just as cold. Is it still about the car?”
Emily learned to play cantabile on the cello and after dinner, she propped her instrument against her shoulder on the floor in the den and played for the family while Larissa stood and smiled and nodded, 4.2 miles and twelve minutes away.
The routine helped her, saved her like staging of a play. During the week, Jared’s work, the kids, the office, the T V, the cleanup, the day-to-day, meant that by midnight, there was no Jared left for anything more than a kiss and a snuggle, which Larissa was happy to give him, her eyes closed, his eyes closed. By Thursdays he was stirring, his caresses becoming more arduous, but only slightly, and the kids being late, himself being late, rushing, running, putting on suits, getting his briefcase together, already thinking of the day ahead, meant that she didn’t have to worry until the weekend and on the weekend, true, there had to be some highwire performance art from her, there had to be courtesy and warmth, some reciprocity of affection, there had to be lying in bed while being caressed by Jared, and all this Larissa dutifully performed because on the front burner of her mind was protecting the only thing that had meaning for her. Had she had qualms about Kai, had she had second thoughts, pangs of conscience perhaps, her Oscar-worthy effrontery would have been harder, but since she experienced none of the three, the same force of intense self-preservation she used to propel herself out of Kai’s bed and into her car to pick up her small child was the force she used to lie in her own bed on the weekends and open her arms to her husband, as if to say, take this from me. I give it to you gladly, while I keep the most precious part of myself, the rest of myself, for someone else, not you.
5
Kai’s Prayers
She got all dressed up on a Saturday at the end of April to go celebrate her belated birthday in the city, with her black peep-toe pumps, her dazzling sequined navy-blue dress. It came just above the knee and her legs, smooth, waxed, lean, were in black stockings. She had painted her nails red and wore red lipstick to match. She wore Jared’s diamonds and rubies on her wrists and her throat, she wore black undergarments and her decolletage as an accessory. She sat in the darkened Jaguar with her arms wrapped around herself, as Jared chatted about work and how hard it was to reserve a table for ten at the Union Square Cafe, and how beautiful she looked for her celebratory evening, and was she feeling all right? Because she was quiet. But Larissa said, I’m not quiet, darling, I’m eagerly anticipating. The lights of the Manhattan skyline were green, sprinkled with night-time razzle-dazzle before they entered the Lincoln Tunnel, passing through Hoboken. She didn’t pray, but now, the prayers she heard in her head were Kai’s.
“Larissa, isn’t there any way we could go out at night? Please?”
“No, Kai.”
“Can I have you overnight? To sleep with you? To wake with you?”
“No, Kai.”
“We’ll go away for one night. I’ll take you to a beautiful hotel. Anywhere you want.”
“No, Kai.”
“Larissa, can we go to Samurai Sushi, the new place that opened in Maplewood?”
“No, Kai.”
“Can I meet your children?”
“No, Kai!”
“Can I have a day with you in the city? You and I, for one day, in the city of dreams, not Summit? We can ride the Circle Line.”
“No, Kai.”
“We’ll go dancing.”
“No, Kai.”
“Oh, Larissa. Is there anything at all that you can do with me?” He opened her bare legs, now so elegantly closed.
“Yes, Kai.”
“You won’t see me outside of this apartment. You won’t have lunch with me in Panera, ice cream with me at Ricky’s, you won’t have dinner with me, you won’t sleep with me. Is there anything you will do with me, Larissa, or are you an imaginary girl?”
“Yes, Kai.”
6
Survei
llance, Electronic
Who designed the cell phone? Who thought that was a good idea? As an ideal, sure. But as a practical matter, a cell phone might as well have been Jared in Larissa’s pocket. The phone would always ring. Larissa’s hiding behind the “no signal” got her only so far. Jared said, “Where are you that you’re in a no signal zone every time I call?” He called at lunch. He was busy in the morning and busy in the afternoon, but at lunch, between twelve and two was when he wanted to speak to her. Trouble was, at lunch between twelve and two was precisely when Larissa could not take Jared’s call.
“I was at the mall,” she said.
“Every day this week? What did you buy?”
“I bought nothing. Just window-shopping. Looking for spring styles.”
But she had to make herself available. One way or another. She started calling Jared at 11:50, as she was racing from Pingry to Madison. Hi, honey. How are you? How was your morning? They had always talked during lunch. What good reason could Larissa give, did Larissa have, for not taking Jared’s calls at lunchtime? What was she doing? Sure, sometimes she could have been having her own lunch, with Maggie, or Evelyn in Hoboken. But how often? And was she so involved with her friends that she couldn’t pick up her husband’s call? And since she actually wasn’t going to lunches with Maggie, how long before this became apparent to both Maggie and Jared? Could she involve Maggie in her duplicity? Could she confide in her? No, not in any universe she lived in. Che maybe. Che hadn’t played Scruples with the gang. Che’s allegiance was only to Larissa. But Che was nowhere to be found in Jersey. With Bo, she had a proper and prim relationship. They met at the Met and talked about the externals of life, and there had been a need for that, though less these days. With Fran, they painted their nails. Her life was not to be doled out in twenty-minute pleas for fraud. Evelyn? Her little bookworm homeschooling Evelyn? Would she understand?
“Larissa, you want to have lunch?” Maggie called to ask.
“Oh, sure. When is good?”
“Any day this week. Monday?”
Monday was the worst. “This Monday is not great. How about Tuesday?”
“I’m working.”
Larissa knew that. “Wednesday? Nah, Wednesday is no good for me. I’m supposed to go into the city, have lunch with Bo.” This was true, strictly, the “supposed to” part. She wasn’t actually planning on going. How about that, using one set of bogus plans to get out of another?
“Thursday?”
“Yes, sure. Thursday.”
But by Thursday, Larissa called, not on her cell phone but from home, and said, “Sorry, Mags, have a blinding headache. Mind if we reschedule?”
Friday Larissa pretended to go with Fran to do her nails, like she used to. Except, Larissa now did her own nails, and since no one knew Fran, no one knew she wasn’t meeting her manicure friend at Nail Art by Grace.
Mondays, Larissa spent not one hour but five in Kai’s bed when the sun moved on the plank floor from one window to another by the time she left. Mondays Larissa didn’t need the cell phone. Mondays she lay naked and was worshipped and serenaded for five hours by a sun god.
But one Sunday Kai called her. “I miss you,” he said. “Whatchya up to?”
She had been gardening, her hands in gloves, the vibrating cell phone in her shorts pocket. She was preparing the ground for flowers, and being outside allowed her the privacy to dream of him, while still being outwardly present in her life.
“Not up to much,” she said quietly. “What are you up to?”
“Up to missing you, is what,” he said.
“Kai…” she lowered her voice to a breathy whisper. “We have all tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait. Can you get away for an hour?”
Can you get away for an hour was the sexiest thing anyone had ever said to her. It meant his work would be quick, efficient. It meant he couldn’t do without her, would dispatch with her, then release her. It meant he needed her for only one thing. She told him no and hung up, but couldn’t continue to sit, to garden, to hoe, to weed. One couldn’t garden and ache in the places she now ached in. Couldn’t continue. Arms wrapped around herself, she stumbled into the house to change clothes and said to Jared she wanted to have a barbecue. She was going to run to the store to pick up some ground beef and chicken wings.
“We got nothing in the house? Not even frozen? Oh, well. Okay. I’ll fire up the grill. Don’t forget potatoes and corn. Oh, and you might as well get some rib-eye. But on the bone, okay?”
She called Kai from the cell phone on the way to Route 124.
“I’m coming,” she said.
“I’m waiting,” he said. “Are you bare under your skirt?”
Yes, Kai…
“Totally bare, Larissa?”
Yes…
It was a miracle she didn’t crash the car.
He was waiting for her at the open door at the top of the stairs.
She didn’t even know if they closed the door before he was inside her.
From zero to one hundred and forty, with hardly a breath in between, zooming all the time, in need, in want, in desire, on deserted roads, engine constantly revving, faster, faster.
Except…when he had complete control over himself and wanted to torment her, he would pin her legs, confine her and proceed to move slow and shallow; he would stand over her so he could watch himself and watch her and he would continue this past the point of all decency, past the point of all decorum, past the point of all sanity, until the only thing Larissa could do, since she couldn’t get away and couldn’t get free, was beg him, beg him to fuck her until she came, and then and only then would he free her.
That is what he did to her today. After forty-five minutes she crowbarred herself away from his naked arms, and staggered down the stairs like a disaster.
She galloped through Stop&Shop, the chicken wings, the potatoes, the rib-eye, bone in. She forgot the cheese, the bacon. She forgot drinks, Coke, she forgot brownies. She never looked at the list, which had fallen out on the hardwood floor at Kai’s place.
“Cash back?”
“Oh, yes, please. A hundred.”
“Max is fifty. Is that okay?”
“It’ll have to be, won’t it?”
Before she got home, he called her again.
“Kai, stop, we’re going to get in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble, baby. This is me in most terrible distress.”
“Kai.”
“All right, I’ll stop. I just wanted to say, I had flowers for you, I bought flowers.”
She had glimpsed them, on the table, in a vase.
“I don’t need them.”
“You do need them. Fields of them. Monday?”
“Monday.”
As soon as she hung up, she erased his messages from her phone.
As soon as she erased the messages from her phone, she realized that she could erase all she wanted, the messages, the little texts, “WOT R U DOING?” “WOT R U UP 2?” “MISS U.” “CALL ME.”
She could erase them to her little heart’s content. She could spend all day erasing. Problem was, the itemized bill was available to Jared online, to Jared, who paid the bills, who paid the phone bill, who looked over the bills, because he was the accountant, not just of Prudential but of her life too. The list of phone calls was available to Jared instantly, at the moment of occurrence, like the saxophone booming buh-Buh-BUH, he could log on to their account, and as she was calling or being called, her husband could press Refresh in their home office, and there it would be. His wife out buying things for the family barbecue, and on her phone, a local number, one minute thirty-eight seconds in duration. The thump thump was not the sax anymore, it was the anxious drums of her heart. She would be found out, no question about it. She slowed down as she drove home, the chicken wings in her car. What to do? Nothing to do. She hoped Jared was too busy lawn bowling to go into his home office. She couldn’t even text Kai to tell him not to text her anymore. Oh!
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When she arrived home she found Jared playing softball with Michelangelo, with Asher standing grimly by, holding his own bat like he wanted to wallop somebody with it, probably his brother, for taking up too much of their dad’s time. When Asher saw his mother walk into the backyard, he, who was not the storming kind, stormed into the house.
“He doesn’t like to share his dad,” said Jared, out of breath. “You were gone forever. Did you get everything?”
“Place was mobbed on a Sunday afternoon. It was ridiculous. They were out of Diet Coke.”
“Out of Diet Coke! And they call themselves a supermarket.”
“I’m going to marinate the chicken.”
“Yes, do. Can you get me a can of something cold?”
She brought him an RC Cola. He kissed her and said thank you.
To Kai on Monday, Larissa said, “You can’t call me anymore. You can’t call me on the cell phone.”
When she explained, Kai looked skeptical. Skeptical but naked. “Does he really check such minutia?”
“He really does.”
“Who’s got the time?”
“He does. That’s his job. This is what he does. He checks things.”
Kai didn’t roll his eyes, didn’t even squint, just slightly narrowed his irises.
She got defensive, though he had said nothing. “Someone has to.”
“I said nothing.”
“Kai, whose job is it going to be? Mine?”
He shrugged in bed, shook her a little, to rumble her mood up. “I’m glad it’s not me. Spending my day looking at little numbers on the screen, seeing if the dollar spent matched the thirty-second call.”
“He didn’t always do this,” Larissa defended, defended her husband to her lover! While lying naked in bed, having barely finished arduous protracted congress, waiting any moment, any second to start again, windows open, cool breeze, leaves green, blooming spring. “Once we had no money.”
“This is much better,” Kai said. “Now he can count it.”
“That’s not all he does.” Though actually that was all Jared did. That was his job. Counting money. $3.4 billion in net income a year. Somebody had to.