“Anything you need, Jodie. This guy and I will be there for you. Right, buddy?” He holds up his hand for Troy to high-five. Troy slaps his palm against it, and I do feel a twinge of guilt for robbing my baby of having a father. But he or she will have a big brother. And me. And Gerald in the background. And Muriel and Francine. And Ginny and Susan. And even George on the floor above me. And my parents in Connecticut. We will not be alone.
“Thanks.” I nod at Gerald, then turn to Troy. “Ready to go, Troy-toy?”
“Don’t call me that, Mom. I’m too old for that sh—“ He realizes his error and doesn’t pronounce the last word. It’s true what they say. Once they’re in school they grow up so fast. It doesn’t matter that Gerald pays for Hunter College, they learn the same ugly words everywhere.
Most times, I don’t even pick him up from Gerald’s anymore. He just walks the few blocks that separate his father’s home from mine. He’ll be going off to college before I know it.
“Let’s go,” Troy says and reaches for his bag. He’s not too old to let his dad kiss him on the cheek and give him a big hug. Thank goodness.
“See you next week,” Gerald calls after us.
Troy is silent on the way home, but I can tell a million questions are flitting through his mind. I explained the process to him as best I could, going into details where it was appropriate but leaving out the information that no young teenage boy needs to know about his mother.
“So we’ll never know who the dad is?” he asks again when we’ve almost reached our building. “Not even my sister or brother will know?”
“I chose an anonymous donor.” I remember going through the details of the men who had donated their sperm. The donor files only consisted of a list of characteristics like height and hair color, medical history, and level of education. At first, instinctively, I sought out tall, blond lawyers until I realized I didn’t need that sort of reminder for the rest of my life. “We only know a few things about him.” Troy already knows this, but perhaps learning the news while at his dad’s has triggered some new emotions in him that need to be processed.
“Mm.” He just shrugs and reaches for the key in his pocket. I take him by the shoulders and make him face me.
“Any questions you have. Ask them, please. Okay?”
“Yeah.” He pushes his hair away from his forehead awkwardly. “What are we going to call… him or her?”
The fact that he says ‘we’ makes my heart sing. “Any ideas?” I ask, although I already have plenty of my own. He opens the door and we walk up the stairs in silence, while he ponders.
“How about Rufus for a boy?” he asks.
Personally, I was thinking more along the lines of Jack or Tommy, but I don’t want to dash his hopes. “Maybe.” He’s already half-way to his room. “Why don’t you make a list? Give it to me in a few days?”
He nods pensively. Pushes his hair away again, then shoots me that grin. “I’m very happy for you… for us, Mom.” And my heart is in my throat.
“Thank you, baby.” I lean against a hallway cabinet with my hip. “Are you up for all the extra chores that come with being the child of a pregnant woman?” I shoot him a smirk.
“I’ve got homework.” He takes a few hesitant steps toward his room.
“And you’ll have to learn how to change diapers. You’ll make the perfect husband for someone some day, baby,” I joke.
I never meant for the age difference between my two children to be so big, but what with Leigh coming along and diverting me from the path I had laid out for myself for such a long time, this is how it’s going to be. Troy will be even more of a teenager by the time this baby joins us. I’ve worked with enough moody, irresponsible, hormonally imbalanced teenagers to know exactly what they can be like—and that it’s foolish to hold most of their mistakes against them, unless they break the law. It will be an interesting combination. And Troy is not just any teenager. He’s my son.
“Come on, Mom.” I can see a flush rise up his neck. It’s the Irish in him. “Lay off.”
“Go do your homework. But stay off the internet.” I smile as he exits my field of vision, and then, as it does so many times, my eye wanders to the one picture I kept of her. The only one on display. It’s only hanging on that wall because Troy insisted. Because every time I took it down he would stare at the empty spot with a trembling lip. Now, I can barely remember the last time I saw him cast a glance at it.
It’s a snap of Leigh and Troy and a giant Lego castle. That’s what they did most together. Build things. I never had much patience to sit on the floor with Troy and help him, but Leigh loved it. She could spend hours studying the instructions, laying out the pieces, and making Troy feel like he’d been the one who’d put it all together, with just a tiny bit of help from her.
He beams with pride in the picture, and Leigh’s smile is so wide, so genuine, you would never have pegged her for a woman with no desire whatsoever to become a mother. I know she loved him. But she left, anyway. Now I have another on the way. I put my hand on my belly. I’m not really showing yet, but just putting my hand there makes it more real. And then that sneaky feeling, that if she were here, that if she’d stayed and could put her hand on my belly, she would have felt it, too.
* * *
Six months later Rosie is born, and my life becomes a whirlwind of not enough sleep, breastfeeding, never-ending noise, folding baby clothes, and never having enough energy to start a new day, but always doing so anyway, and enjoying every minute of it.
A few months after bringing Rosie home, I find myself standing in front of the picture of Leigh and Troy, Rosie in my arms, introducing her to Leigh.
“This pretty woman next to your brother,” I say, “is Leigh Sterling.” And I’m not overwhelmed anymore by a sense of loss, or missing out on another life, because I know that I’ve become what was in my cards all along: a mother, again.
“She was a bit crazy, this woman,” I say to Rosie. “She didn’t want an adorable, cute, awesome baby like you, Rosie. Can you believe that?” And I can smile now because the hurt has been replaced by so many other emotions. “She must have been crazy for not wanting that, huh?” I inhale my daughter’s scent while staring at Leigh. I pondered sending her a birth announcement card, but it felt like rubbing it in too much. Like exclaiming, look how happy I am without you, and that didn’t feel right. Because I could never in my right mind claim that Leigh leaving had made me even remotely happy.
Thus, I haven’t seen Leigh since she came to pick up the last of her boxes, months overdue. Last I heard she moved to San Francisco. I bet she’s a hot-shot lawyer there. I bet she gets all the girls. I bet our lives are now so completely different we couldn’t even be friends if we tried.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another weekend, another woman, I think, as I let Karen into my apartment. It’s my third rental place in San Francisco. After I first arrived, I lived in the financial district to be close to work, but it was too dead and lonely after dark. Then I moved south of Castro, but that brought too much temptation for one more martini after I’d had three already. Too close to Cherries to not pop in and see who would give me the time of day.
Now, I’m on Lexington Street in the Mission District and I’ve sworn it will be my last rental before I buy a house. If I keep working the way I do, the road to making partner is wide open. My very own house will be the reward for the life I chose when I left New York.
I don’t tell all this to Karen. Karen is not here for a chat. We both know what she’s here for. She may as well be called Lynn, like the woman I brought here last week, or Fran, like the one from a few weeks back.
“You’re playing the field, huh,” Sonja said when she came to visit a month ago. “Good for you.” Only, it didn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good now, either. Yet, I can’t seem to stop myself. What felt good at the time Sonja said it, though, was seeing her, someone from what I now consider ‘my old life’. San Francisco has given me everything I thoug
ht I wanted, and my life is not an unhappy one—from what I hear from tipsy colleagues and acquaintances in bars it might even be an enviable one—but let’s just say it doesn’t feel exactly how I had expected it to.
Take this woman who is sitting on my sofa while I fix us another drink. She’s petite, with slicked-back dark hair, and her eyes sparkle when she looks at me, as if she knows what she’s in for—maybe I’ve built a reputation for myself in more than one field? Even this sort of formulaic foreplay doesn’t satisfy me anymore. And it used to be such a thrill. Sitting at the bar at Cherries. Occupying my favorite spot in the corner, the one with the best view. A shot of whiskey at hand. Scoping out the place. Sometimes, I don’t even have to try. They just walk up to me, as Karen did earlier. Because I knew what I was there for, I didn’t fend off her barely concealed advances. And every time I meet someone, there’s this twinge of hope, like a feebly flickering flame that gets a fresh rush of oxygen, that this time it might be different. That I won’t know if I don’t try. And then I try. And run out of oxygen after one night.
Maybe it will be different with Karen. I have to believe that, which is why I repeat this cycle of hello-goodbye over and over again. This is San Francisco. The number of happy lesbian couples must be higher here than anywhere else in the country—except, perhaps, for Portland. I see them everywhere. Doing groceries together at Whole Foods. Strolling through Dolores Park hand in hand. Every time I go to the movies, one of my favorite means of escape, a Happy Lesbian Couple is seated in the row in front of me. As if destiny is trying to tell me something. I haven’t figured out if it’s that I could be part of a couple like that as well, or that I was a fool to destroy the one I was part of in New York.
“Cheers,” I say, as I hand Karen her martini.
“What a lovely place you’ve got.” The wrong remark. After moving three times in the course of two years, my decorating touch has become lazy instead of sharp. I just don’t bother with hanging up picture frames or having the right color of curtains made anymore. Why would I if I know I’m just passing through?
“Thanks,” I say, anyway. I can hardly dismiss her because she’s trying to make polite conversation. There’s also something about her that draws me to her more than to others who have sat on that couch. Maybe it’s the tint of her irises. They have green flecks in them. A rarity I’ve always found highly attractive.
We’ve already covered the what-do-you-do and where-are-you-from bits of our biography at the bar. The preliminary work has been done. All I need to do is swoop in—because God forbid someone swoops in on me. The closest I can get to allowing someone to make the first move is having them walk up to me while I’m nursing a drink, my demeanor an open invitation. After that, it needs to come from me. I determine the pace. Decide where we go—always my place. And with me on top.
“Have you lived here long?” It’s this small talk I can’t stand.
“Long enough,” I say, and move in. I take her glass and deposit it on my designer coffee table. I take her now free hand in mine and examine it, giving the impression I can read her palm. Run my thumb over a line. Press a little. Her lips part already. Then I drop her hand and bring mine to her jaw, cup it briefly, before rubbing my thumb along her lips, demanding entrance. Perhaps it would have been politer to kiss her first, but I need to gauge the sort of woman I’m dealing with. This is how. If she protests too much it’s probably not going to work out.
Karen sucks my thumb between her lips with the kind of gusto that never fails to turn me on. This night may not be a total loss, after all. There’s promise in the way she twirls her tongue around my thumb, and in the way her green-speckled eyes find mine. Okay then.
I grin at her as I remove my thumb from between her lips. The main issue with a string of one-night stands is that the first time can touch the edges of what I really want to do, but it can never go any further. The irony of what my love life has consisted of these past few years is not lost on me. Always searching, never finding. At first, I was just looking for the next Jodie, until it dawned on me that that was hardly fair on anyone.
Karen lets her head fall back, exposing her neck to me. Is she not the kissing kind? We’ll see about that.
“Get up,” I say and lead by example. “Come here.”
Before she stands, she peers at me from under her lashes for a few seconds, as if she wants me to make her. Then she rises, and I pull her toward me, hoist her top over her head in the same movement. No bra. Just a pair of leather pants and the sort of high-heels I only wear in court when I have something impossible to prove. I do like what I see. I feel it twitch in my muscles, and between my legs.
I walk us toward the nearest wall and push her against it. I curl my fingers around her wrists and bring them above her head. Her breasts jut out and the desire to take her nipple into my mouth overwhelms me. But I resist. Instead, I unbutton her trousers and lower her zipper.
“Keep your hands above your head,” I murmur before taking a step back and taking in the view. She looks so vulnerable and defiant at the same time. Her skin is pale against the black of the leather, her lips smudged red. This is a test for me as well. I wish it didn’t have to be. I wish I could just enjoy these few hours we have together. Give her what she wants while tending to my own needs. A perfect transaction of fulfilling emotional and physical needs. But sex is rarely so uncomplicated.
Then I give in. Take a step toward her and kiss her fully on the mouth, my tongue meeting hers in a soft crash of desire and lust and trying to make up for too much accumulated disappointment. But maybe I am ready. The thought shocks me at first. But why wouldn’t I be? I’ve relocated. My career’s on track. I know Karen doesn’t have any children. The first thing I will have to ask her about in the morning is where she sees herself in five years.
I pinch her nipple hard and she barely even shudders. Her lack of obvious response turns me on. I pinch harder and she writhes a tiny bit against me and it reminds me that all I really want is someone who can take it the way Jodie did. To meet my match in this game of give-and-receive.
When we break from the kiss, my fingers still on her nipple, she stares into my eyes and flits her tongue over her lips. “Harder,” she says, and it’s as if someone has flicked a switch in my brain.
* * *
The following morning, the light wakes me, pouring in through the flimsy curtains that came with the apartment. Before I open my eyes fully, I align my memories of the night before. The bar. The walk over here. A woman named Karen who got to me. Three hours of sleep at most because I couldn’t get enough of her, and she kept asking for more, harder, wider. Already, my lips are breaking into a smile. I open my eyes to slits. Karen is so tiny, she’s barely a presence in my bed. She’s moved to the edge, her body curled into a ball, her head next to the pillow.
I crawl toward her, spoon her small frame with my tall one. We fit snugly together. That’s a start.
“Morning,” I whisper in her ear. I revel in the absence of regret.
She turns on her back, my arm sliding onto her bare chest. My bedroom smells of sex, of good times had. “Hey.” She smiles up at me. Her lipstick is smudged all the way around her mouth and her mascara has left black marks on her cheeks.
There’s no awkwardness, no anticipation for a hurried walk of shame out of my apartment.
“Coffee?” I ask. If we drank too much alcohol last night, we sweated it out in bed after. I feel no signs of a hangover, only an already returning pulse between my legs. My eyes wander to the scarf with which I tied her wrists to the bed and I feel all fuzzy inside.
“Sure.” Her voice is a bit hoarse. “But something else first.” She pulls me toward her and kisses me. It’s deep from the beginning and I get lost in it so much I don’t realize she’s pushed herself up and is now half on top of me. She kisses my cheek next, then my chin, and moves down with more incremental pit stops, and by the time she’s reached my belly button, I spread my legs easily for her. I want her there. And
when she licks me, I don’t think of anyone else. My mind just goes blank while my body surrenders. And I know it’s the beginning of something.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You need to get laid, girl,” Muriel says. “How long has it been?”
She says the exact same thing to me every Friday after work. This time, I try to humor her with a truthful reply, but the truth is that I can’t even remember. “I honestly don’t know.” The last time I had sex was with Leigh, that I do remember. First I was grieving. Then I had Rosie. It’s Rosie’s first birthday next week. So, I guess I could actually count the months—years—since that time Leigh came to pick up some of her stuff, but the prospect is too depressing.
“All jokes aside.” Muriel’s face goes all serious. “You need affection, honey.” To prove her point she puts her hand on my arm.
I stare at it as though she’s making a move on me. “Oh, hell no.” She doesn’t remove her hand, however, just squeezes a bit harder. “Francine won’t be having any of that.” She cocks her head. “Besides, it would only put our excellent working relationship in peril.”
I swat away Muriel’s hand. “I’ve got you. I’ve got my children. I’ve got my job. My friends. I don’t need anything more.”
“Keep telling yourself that until you believe it, sweet pea.” Muriel drinks from her mai tai.
“Maybe you’re right.” I don’t usually concur so easily. “But I come with a lot of baggage.”
“Everyone does at our age.” Muriel shrugs. “Does this mean I can finally set you up with Amy?”
Amy Bernard. I’ve heard so much about the woman from Muriel I feel as if I already know her, although we’ve never met. I even googled her, just out of curiosity.
“We’ll babysit. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“Nothing to worry about? How about selling myself to another woman with my stretch marks and scars and two children?”
Once in a Lifetime Page 5
