Sex as a Second Language

by Alisa Kwitney

  Kat sighed. “Zan, I know Magnus is nice-looking, but this is supposed to be my birthday celebration, and I don’t want the evening to be all about flirting with some man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You,” said Kat, exasperated. “Flirting compulsively.”

  Zandra put her hands on her hips. “Why are you singling me out? I’m not paying any more attention to him than Marcy is.”

  “Please, Zan, get real. Marcy isn’t gazing up at Magnus as if he were some kind of rock star.”

  “I don’t know where else to sit, Kat! You don’t have any comfortable furniture!”

  “Listen,” Kat said, gentling her tone, “I know it’s not serious. It’s just your style. I mean, you even flirted with Logan when he was around, and I never said anything. But I wanted to spend some time with just you and Marcy.”

  Zandra tossed her head, offended. “I do not treat men any differently than I do women. And I just didn’t want to seem rude to your student, Kat. But by all means, tell him to leave if you want to.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  The two women marched back into the living room. Magnus was still tuning the guitar; Marcy looked up. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” said Kat and Zandra simultaneously, both sounding sharp.

  Magnus looked up. “I’m sorry. I’m intruding, aren’t I?”

  “No,” Kat said, deciding to be blunt. “But in a little while, we’ll need some time to talk woman talk.”

  Magnus flushed and stood up. “Oh, of course. It was nice meeting you both,” he said to Zandra and Marcy.

  “I didn’t mean you had to leave this instant,” Kat said, embarrassed by his embarrassment. “I was hoping you could play us a song first,” she added.

  “No, I’d better be getting back to my room.”

  “No, really, stay a little longer.” Kat felt like smacking herself. Talk about sending mixed messages.

  “Well, just one song.” Magnus settled himself back on the couch with the guitar on his lap. Kat perched on the armrest, so as to give him room to stretch out.

  Magnus strummed the guitar, then adjusted the G chord. “It’s a lovely old guitar you have here, but you might need to restring it. How long since it’s been played?”

  “Since Logan left. I was thinking Dash might learn.” Logan had called her once, just after he’d moved out, ostensibly to arrange to see Dashiell. Then, with studied casualness, he’d asked for his guitar. Sorry, she’d said, but that’s Dashiell’s guitar now. Logan had not been happy about it, but Kat had remained firm. Somehow she’d known, even that early on, that Dashiell wasn’t going to be getting much from his father.

  “Good idea for when he’s a teenager. If you’re shy, it gives you something to hide behind at parties.” Magnus put his ear close to the strings, checking the sound. “Okay.”

  How had she known that Logan wasn’t going to be your typical divorced dad, anxious to stay in his kid’s good graces, offering racing bikes and junk food as bribes? As Magnus started to play the first few bars to “Heart of Gold,” Kat thought back and realized that she’d always facilitated Dashiell’s time with his dad. Unlike her own father, Logan had known how to play the part of a father, but she had always planned the outing, packed the food, issued the instructions.

  Logan had never actually volunteered for these father-son excursions, either. She’d nagged him into them, wearing him down with comparisons to other fathers, appeals to his conscience, comments about what good press it was for the soap opera magazine to run photos of him doting on his son.

  “Hey, Kat,” said Marcy, “why aren’t you singing?”

  Kat blinked and smiled at her friend. “I’m enjoying listening to you. Keep going.” Marcy resumed singing in her thin, sweet soprano, while Zandra turned the empty guitar case over and used it as a drum. Kat hummed along, still trying to assimilate the idea that Logan’s betrayal hadn’t really come from out of left field. There had been clues. She just hadn’t read them correctly.

  “Oh, wait,” said Marcy at the beginning of the second verse as her voice broke on a high note.

  “No, keep going,” said Magnus, joining in for the first time. His voice was low and surprisingly pleasant, and he gave Kat a quick glance as he sang about being a miner for a heart of gold. Now that the song was in a lower key, Kat joined in, meeting Magnus’s surprised smile with one of her own. “…keep me searching and I’m growing old…”

  Magnus continued singing, too, his quieter, more consistent voice mostly drowned out by theirs. And somewhere around the third chorus, Kat felt herself relax. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea, having a boarder, inviting Magnus to join them. She admired the shape of his shoulders under his white T-shirt, the play of muscles in his arms as he played the guitar. Surprisingly nimble, those fingers, she thought, and then flushed as Zandra caught her looking and raised one thinly plucked eyebrow.

  When the song ended, Magnus started to stand up, his knee giving an audible crack. “My fingers are stiff,” he said. “I’m not used to steel strings anymore.”

  Paradoxically, the moment he was leaving, Kat found herself wanting him to stay. The fact that his eyes seemed to linger on her longer than on her friends had absolutely nothing to do with it.

  “Wait,” said Zandra, who had momentarily relinquished her spot at Magnus’s feet to smoke a cigarette at Kat’s open window. “Do you know ‘American Pie’?”

  “Oh, please no, Madonna ruined that song for me,” said Marcy. “How about another Neil Young song?” She clapped her hands together. “Or James Taylor?”

  Kat, about to tell Zandra to put out her cigarette, decided to just let it slide. She had a sudden mental picture of her mother in the mid-seventies, bringing out a pitcher of martinis and a tray of rumaki to a roomful of guests. In those days, Lia Miner had attracted an unusual crowd: diplomats who had gone a little native, lesbian nuns, psychiatrists with unpopular theories, ex-military men who had gone to live on houseboats. All of them a little in love with Kat’s mother.

  Her mother had always suggested that something of this sort would happen to Kat someday—“My thirties were my prime time, and they’ll be yours, too, just wait and see.” But lately Lia had started saying, “Well, nowadays forty is like thirty used to be. But you have to be more selective about your friends, Kat. Weed out the dead ones and constantly plant new seeds, that’s the way to do it.”

  At this point, Kat usually pointed out that her mother basically saw the same two friends day in and day out, in large part because one worked with her and the other lived in their building.

  Kat looked around at Marcy and Zandra, still caught up in the novelty of an attractive man with a guitar. Only Magnus glanced up at her, asking a silent question.

  Oh, fine, Kat thought, I’m not going to fight this. “Is anybody hungry?” she asked. No point in withholding casserole now. Besides, she was getting hungry.

  “I don’t want to…” Magnus began, but Kat waved her hand dismissively.

  “There’s more than enough.” Before heading into the kitchen, she decided to check in on Dash and Nico. Knocking on their door, she asked, “Everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” said Nico, turning around. He and Dashiell were sitting on the floor, surrounded by the Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that Dash collected.

  “Ready for dinner? I made some casserole, or else there’s frozen pizza or hot dogs.”

  “In a minute,” said Dash. “How about this one?” He held up a card for Nico’s inspection.

  Kat closed the door, but just as she was about to walk off, she heard Nico say, “Not enough. All five of your best cards, or I’m not going to be your friend anymore.”

  Heart pounding, Kat waited to hear her son’s response. “All right,” Dash said, “and then we can play?”

  “Sure,” said Nico in his affectless voice. “But first, I get the cards.”

  chapter twenty-two

  i t took ten minu
tes for the evening to turn deeply, horribly ugly. Three minutes for Kat to inform Zandra that her son was being manipulative and unkind; two minutes for Zandra to explain why she didn’t believe that direct parental intervention was the answer, as children need to learn to navigate their own friendships; and four more minutes for Kat to tell Zandra that taking a million courses in spiritual growth and self-actualization wasn’t worth five dog turds if you didn’t know when it was time to step in and tell your kid that it’s not okay to take advantage of people by pretending to be their friend.

  Then it took Zandra a minute to suggest that perhaps Kat needed to look to her own son’s problems making friends, Nico hadn’t wanted to come, she added, until he’d been bribed with staying up past his bedtime.

  In her turn, Kat suggested that it was vital to pay attention to asocial tendencies, adding that lack of empathy was a common trait among sociopaths.

  This statement was followed by a long, long moment of heated silence.

  “Okay,” said Marcy, breaking in, “I can see that everyone’s feeling very strongly about this, but let’s try to avoid any premature closure.” Magnus, Kat noticed, had discreetly disappeared at the onset of hostilities.

  “I’m sorry,” said Zandra, “but there’s only so much time you can give a person leeway for getting a divorce. Kat, you have just gone over the edge. Nico,” she shouted, “we’re leaving. Now! Marcy, I’ll call you later.”

  Nico ran out of Dashiell’s room, looking confused. “But Mom,” he said, “I haven’t got my shoes on!”

  “We’ll put them on in the hall,” said Zandra. The door slammed behind her.

  And there you were, thought Kat. Ten minutes to end a friendship. “Can you believe that?” she demanded, turning to Marcy. “Can you believe that she would rather let our friendship end than stop her son from taking advantage of mine?”

  “Oh, Kat, please don’t look at me to take sides,” pleaded Marcy, nervously pushing her fine, fair hair behind her ears. “I love you both.”

  Kat put her hands on her hips, furious. “Give me a break. You can’t even take sides when it’s this obvious who’s right?

  “It’s not that clear-cut,” said Marcy. “Both of you make valid points.”

  “Jesus Christ, Marcy, sometimes you have to have an opinion.”

  “I do have opinions, Kat, they’re just not always the opinions you want me to have.” Marcy’s voice was wavering, and she took a deep breath. “Take my subbing for you next week,” she continued, sounding a little calmer. “While I’m happy to do it, you should know that the director came up to me the last time and asked why you were absent.”

  Shit. That wasn’t good. “What did you say to her?” This came out sounding more accusatory than Kat had intended.

  “I said it was something to do with your son,” said Marcy, her cheeks reddening with temper. “But if you want my opinion, Kat, you can’t keep skipping classes in order to go to auditions.”

  “Next week is an actual job, remember? The skin-care infomercial.”

  Marcy shrugged. “The point is, the Persky Institute wants its instructors to make teaching a priority.”

  “Then they should pay a living wage! Do you know how much I’m going to make from that one day of work, Marcy?”

  “But it’s not reliable, is it, Kat? At least teaching provides a steady income.”

  For the first time, Kat found herself sympathizing with Marcy’s aggressive boyfriend. “So I should just arrange my life to suit the Persky Institute because that’s the way they want it? For Christ’s sake, Marcy, you can’t live your life trying to avoid all confrontation. It’s okay to get angry sometimes. It’s okay to get people angry.”

  “Yes, Kat, but you’re always angry at somebody or something. And somebody is always angry at you. I mean, look at tonight. First you pick a fight with Zandra, and now you’re picking one with me.”

  Kat had to actively fight the urge to shake the self-righteous look off her friend’s face. “You know what,” she said, “maybe we should just call this a night.”

  “I’ll still sub for you on Monday, Kat. I just hope you know what you’re doing. And here, I didn’t give you your present yet.” Marcy handed Kat an envelope. Kat opened it up: There were two tickets inside for the new production of The Taming of the Shrew.

  Kat looked up. “Is this meant to be a hint?”

  Instead of laughing, Marcy shook her head. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “You have a huge chip on your shoulder sometimes.”

  Well, Kat thought once she was alone, Marcy had taken her advice; she hadn’t shied away from a confrontation. For some reason, this did not make Kat feel as good as she might have hoped. Knocking on Dashiell’s door, she thought of all the things she wished she’d said to Marcy. I’m not looking for arguments, but I’m not just going to sit here and take abuse. You can’t always stay neutral in order to be the good guy. Please, let’s not end things on such a bad note. Kat knocked again. “Dash? Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  “No,” her son shouted from behind the door. “You know, I wanted to give Nico those cards!”

  Kat pressed her hand against the door. “Can’t I sit down with you and talk about it?”

  “No!”

  “Dash, I know you’re upset.” She tried to turn the knob, only to discover that her son had barricaded himself inside. “Please move the chair away from the door. It’s a fire hazard.”

  “I hate you. You ruin everything,” Dashiell yelled. “No wonder Daddy wanted to leave.”

  “Okay, now, that’s not fair,” said Kat, suddenly furious. Banging her hip against the door as she turned the knob, she forced her way into her son’s room. “Listen, Dash, not everything is my fault.”

  “Get out!” Dashiell’s face flushed bright red.

  “Not until you listen to me for one moment,” Kat said, knowing she was doing this all wrong, that she should just let it go and allow her son the freedom to be angry at her.

  “I hate you!”

  “You don’t hate me, you’re just mad at me right now. But it’s not really me you ought to be mad at,” she added, unable to stop herself. “It’s that horrible, selfish, poisonous dwarf of a child, and that miserable excuse for a father.”

  “Shut up! I don’t have to listen to you!”

  Kat reached out, and Dashiell flailed at her. “Stop hitting me,” she said.

  “Then get out!”

  “But I want to work this out.”

  “Get out! Or else I will.” Crying, Dashiell grabbed his pillow and stuffed elephant. “I’m going to Nana’s house!”

  “Okay,” said Kat, thinking, maybe Zandra was right, I am going over the edge. Her own eyes welled up with tears. “Let me call Nana and tell her you’re coming over.”

  But now Dashiell was crumbling, all his rage disintegrating in the face of her pain. “Mommy, stop, I won’t go. Don’t cry.”

  Kat wrapped her son in her arms. “You can go, Dash, it’s okay to be mad at me.”

  “I’ll stay, Mommy.”

  Kat smoothed her son’s hair back from his sweaty brow. “No, baby, I’ll stay,” said Kat, finally sure she was saying the right thing. “You can push me away and be upset with my decisions and yell at me, and I will still stay right here and love you just as much as ever. I won’t go anywhere, baby, no matter what.”

  “I’m not mad anymore,” said Dash, and she hugged him more tightly. She wanted to offer him a chance to sleep in her bed, but she knew instinctively that this wasn’t what her son needed right now. He needed what children with two parents had: the freedom to push Mommy away a little, so you could listen to the little voice inside you. Dash needed to sort tonight out for himself.

  Kat wiped the tears away from her son’s cheeks. “Would you still like to sleep at Nana’s? Just to get away from all this?”

  “Not if you don’t want me to, Mommy.”

  Kat kiss
ed her son’s forehead, then called her mother and sent Dash across the hall with his pillow and stuffed toy and toothbrush, feeling as if she were about to turn eighty instead of forty.

  Maybe if she just focused on doing what needed to be done—clearing up the dishes—she could get through the rest of the evening. But as Kat walked into the kitchen, trying furiously not to think about Marcy calling Zandra up to make it clear she wasn’t taking sides, Kat remembered. She wasn’t alone in her home. Magnus was still around, a witness to her humiliation.

  Shit, Kat thought, wanting to dig a hole and hide her head in it for the next twelve months. Okay, she told herself, quit moping. You’re not sick, your home hasn’t been demolished by flood or fire, and at least you don’t have to deal with being the mother of an amoral bully.

  But still, Kat thought, fucking Zandra, going around pretending she was a struggling independent documentary filmmaker when she was actually a trust-fund baby.

  The more Kat thought about it, the more infuriated she became, with Nico’s robotic little voice, with his mother’s casual dismissal of the incident (“Oh, my God, Kat, they get into this kind of thing all the time, you should have heard them at my place last time, I had to stop Dash from paying Nico five dollars”). And to top it all off, there was Marcy, primly telling her that she had anger-management issues.

  Suddenly Kat looked down at the stove, where the dinner she had cooked was sitting, congealing. So much wasted time and effort. What the fuck was the point of trying to do things for people? All they ever did was let you down.

  Overcome by another burst of rage, Kat seized her untouched casserole and swung it with all her might against the kitchen wall at the precise moment Magnus opened the door to his room, startling her into turning her head, and throwing her aim off by a critical six inches.

  chapter twenty-three

  i am so, so sorry, Magnus,” said Katherine, putting her hand to her mouth. The problem was, she didn’t look sorry. In fact, Magnus thought, his new landlady looked as though she were about to burst out laughing.