But I feel comfortable with Isaac. Comfortable enough that I can share this piece of me that I’ve protected so mercilessly for so long.
“Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people.” I edge closer and watch as his fingers dance lightly on my skin, still damp from our recent work-out. “It’s based on a story from the time of Moses. Basically, the Jewish people were given a set of commandments, and they were pretty awful listeners. They worshipped a golden calf, which was clear idolatry and Hashem was extremely pissed. Moses spent three months negotiating on behalf of the Hebrews, and Yom Kippur is a celebration of the day Hashem pardoned them.”
“God, you mean?” Isaac asks, his voice innocent enough that I know he doesn’t mean it as a correction.
“His name has incredible power in Judaism. People are contested about how often to use it and when. I like to use Hashem, but it’s open, you know? I think He’s pretty open to a huge amount of interpretation.” I look into Isaac’s wide green eyes and watch the smile flood his face. “Why the smile?”
“I admire how passionate you are. Sometimes I wish I had that same kind of intensity for what I believe.” He shakes his head, and runs a thumb over my thigh. “Or what I’m supposed to believe, I guess. What are services like?”
“Well, as I’m pretty sure you could guess, it’s a time when you want to show how thankful you are. How amazing it is to have been forgiven. So, it’s a time of reflection and purity. You feast the day before, because you’ll be fasting the day of. No showering. No sex.” I raise my eyebrows at him and he nods. “We go to temple, several times. We pray. We atone for all our sins. All the world’s sins, actually, and we do it with pure, open hearts. And we contemplate. At the end of it all, we feast again.”
“And you enjoy this?” he asks.
I nod and he takes a piece of my hair and loops it around his fingers. “I do. I enjoy the connection to a religion my ancestors fought to continue practicing. They moved all the way from Russia to Mexico City in the 1800s for that freedom. I enjoy Yom Kippur specifically because it represents this idea of unshakable love. This thought that, no matter how badly you screw up, no matter what sins you’re guilty of, there is a chance for redemption. A chance to start new. That’s a precious thought for me.”
I wait, tense, for Isaac to pass judgment.
“It sounds gorgeous. Thank you.” He kisses between my breasts, where my heart thuds hard.
“Thank you?” My brain blurs at the touch of his lips on my skin.
“For allowing me to be a part of this. I know the bet was made lightly, but you care about this, I can tell. And I’m honored you trust me enough to share it.” His kisses trace down to the left, along my ribs, then retrace and follow back to the right.
I watch his dark head kissing me and realize that I am taking him somewhere sacred to me on many levels. I’m cracking my life open and showing him the pieces I’ve kept for myself, hidden from the people I can’t trust. I guess it’s very telling that I never invited Richard to temple, but I not only invited Isaac, he’ll participate in services with me.
I run my fingers through his silky, dark hair. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
He looks up, his eyes lazy and peppered with a lust that’s becoming more and more familiar on his features. “I can only hope I’m amazing enough to keep you interested.” He nuzzles the underside of one breast. “By the way, did you say something about an entire day without sex?”
I tsk my tongue, but he’s already rolled on top of me, his gorgeous face smiling down. “I think you’ll be able to handle it,” I deadpan.
“Don’t be so sure. I may have been able to deal before I got a taste of you. Now…not so much.” He drags slow, sweet kisses along my stomach and down to the tops of my thighs.
My breath is painfully erratic. “Isaac. I can’t…not again.”
He looks up, his expression equal parts wicked and smug. “What is it with you putting a set number on the amount of orgasms you can have? You’re a strong—” He pauses to kiss me between words. “Gorgeous—woman. And I want—to make you—come.” The last kiss is laced with a good amount of tongue and the next words make me tremble. “Over. And over. And over again.”
I moan and reach for him, eager to have him prove me wrong over. And over. And over again.
16 ISAAC
“Tonight you’re coming to my apartment,” I declare, putting my pants on and grabbing my shirt from the chair in the corner. We’ve come back to her apartment after every date we’ve had for the past few weeks, and I’m beginning to realize it’s just another way she can keep control. And there is nothing sexier than Lydia when she loses control, so I’m always trying to get her to do just that.
She sits up in bed, letting the sheet fall away as she does. “Your apartment?”
I love the way she wrinkles her nose and shakes her head, like I’m asking her to come somewhere truly terrible. Somewhere like a cheesy amusement park or an all you can eat roadside buffet.
“What do you picture when you imagine my apartment?” I ask, grinning. “A fold out card table loaded with empty beer bottles—”
“Wine bottles,” she corrects, giggling.
“A foosball table? Some video game consoles? Polyester sheets?” The other examples had her laughing, but the last one makes her gasp.
“You don’t have polyester sheets, do you?” she asks, clutching her silky sheets like she’s trying to erase the horror of that very idea.
I raise my eyebrows. “They never lose their color. And you never have to iron them.”
“Why would you iron your sheets?” she muses, then narrows her eyes at me. “Stop making fun of me this minute. I guess I’ll come to your place. Do you want me to pick up some takeout?”
I knot my tie and straighten it in her hall mirror before I move back to the bed and plant a soft, sweet kiss on her perfect lips. “No. I want to cook for you.”
“You can cook?” I know she tries not to sound so obviously surprised. She’s adorable, but this is getting insulting.
“Of course.” I throw my hands up. “How do you think I got this big and healthy. Cooking in America is so easy. Would you like a Hungry Man dinner or Hamburger Helper?”
She tosses a throw pillow at me, and I open the door to leave, looking forward to our meal and everything else I know will come after it.
***
I’ve never had a less productive day in the studio. Every time I lock myself away and try to think about how sunlight works on stone, I remember the way the sun shone on Lydia’s skin. Angles, shadows, frames, all become terms that have to do with the curves and twists and hidden spaces of her body. I’m obsessed with her, and it’s beginning to be a problem.
I’m so desperate for some kind of help, some kind of direction that I break a cardinal rule of studio time and answer my ringing phone. I couldn’t be more shocked to hear my father’s voice.
“I’m in LA for a few days. Meet me at Piccolo’s.”
I speak fast. My father hates phones and never stays on longer than absolutely necessary. “Not Piccolo’s.” That restaurant fills me with thoughts of Lydia and the sumptuous way she ate and flirted during our dinner. The last thing I’m going to do is let my father’s brusque bullshit ruin a place I consider ours—Lydia’s and mine.
I’m actually having a late lunch with her later, but I need to keep fortified. I can’t get enough of her, and I need to keep my strength up because I don’t want that to change anytime soon.
“Mastro’s then. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” He ends the call.
I look at my canvas. Time is running out. I’ve traded hours in my workspace for hours with Lydia, and did so gladly. But it’s a different thing entirely to give up a session doing what I love to spend time with the man who relishes telling me what an unworthy hack I am. Especially since I might just prove him right if I don’t get this set of paintings done.
I pull up at Mastro’s and he’s already the
re. He’s ordered us both whiskeys. He’ll drink whatever he can get his hands on, but he knows I have no taste for strong whiskey, so he goes out of his way to make sure to put it in front of me as often as possible. Usually I drink to show him I’m tougher than he thinks. That I can take anything he throws my way.
Today I think of Lydia.
I gesture to the waiter and order a Shiraz.
My father sneers. “Your mother loves that backwash.”
I ignore him. It’s much easier than I imagined.
“Bone-in rib-eye, still mooing,” my father says to a waiter who passes our table. It isn’t even our waiter, but he doesn’t care. He also chuckles at his own toddleresque pronouncement of ‘mooing.’
The waiter is polite and takes my order. I stare at my father across the table.
He’s beyond portly. His stomach is distended from too much indulgence and too little exercise. His skin is wrinkled from years of sun exposure and reddened from constant heavy drinking. He runs a stubby set of fingers over his shiny, balding head and gulps down his whiskey, sucking it between his yellowed teeth. He takes out a cigarette.
“There’s no smoking here,” I remind him.
He throws it down with a scowl. “Fucking bullshit,” he mutters, then looks at me. My eye color is from his side, but his green is tainted by the tiny rays of bloodshot veins on either side. My father—my powerful, bullying, strong as a bull father—is falling apart before my eyes. “I hear you have a show in a few weeks.”
I nod, still shocked to realize that he’s capable of aging. Of losing his superior ground with me. For the first time in my life, it occurs to me that I could, if I stood now and challenged him to a contest with our fists alone, beat him in a fair fight.
It’s a thought that brings me a mixture of confidence and intense sadness.
“I do. The university offered me a generous grant. I’m excited.” I gulp down some wine after I admit that. I make it a habit to keep my truest feelings secured close when it comes to my father. Anything vulnerable is open for ridicule in his book, and there’s nothing more vulnerable than my art.
Correction. There was nothing more vulnerable than my art. Then I met Lydia.
Just thinking about her and what she means to me as I sit across from my father drives me into a quick panic. He can’t know about her, I realize. Neither can my mother. They’re not monsters, but they’re humans flawed enough to see something good and precious and break it just to prove a point.
I won’t allow that to happen to me and Lydia.
“Is it still the buildings?” he asks, not bothering to hide the derision in his voice.
“Still the cathedrals, yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
He tosses back the whiskey he ordered for me and snaps for a refill. I cringe and he shakes his head. “What is it, Isaac? My bad manners embarrass you?” he asks in falsetto.
“Didn’t you tell me poor manners were the distinguishing feature of a man who had no self-control?”
He had. Many times. Mostly when I was a young boy still learning to grapple with a knife and fork or trying my best to remember ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous.’
His smile is condescending, and I realize that even that simple lesson was spoiled by his particularly twisted ulterior motives. It must have been a way for him to show off his dominance as a father, to make me more of a trained monkey than I was.
“Poor manners are the prerogative of a man who’s paid his dues and won’t wait for the respect he’s owed.” He nods at the waiter who brings him a fresh drink, making a point of not uttering a ‘thank you.’ I know that it’s for my benefit. “And so is brutal honesty.”
Before he can say whatever words he’ll use to shred my confidence, the steaks arrive. He pulls his plate over like a greedy child and digs in, seeming to forget everything and everyone around him. For a few minutes, I don’t have to listen to him judging me. The tradeoff is that I have to witness him eating. He used to take pride in the presentation of everything he did, but time has obviously left him devoid of care. My father eating a steak reminds me of a pig hunting for truffles.
I try to focus on my own plate to keep my stomach from turning.
He finishes abruptly, pushing the plate back, and letting a low burp rumble from his mouth. My father has crossed some invisible line and become a caricature of his former self.
“What was I saying?” he asks, his voice slurred from too much whiskey and raw meat. “Oh, yes! Honesty.” He rubs his hands together, a few quick swipes of calloused palm to calloused palm. “Your paintings are boring, Isaac. Technically brilliant, but so boring.” He shrugs, like this is something he doesn’t want to say. Like this hurts him more than it hurts me.
Caricature and cliché. That is all he is.
But there are still remnant tentacles of power. He still has a pull over me I can’t explain or ignore. Much as I want to. Much as the evidence of his boorish asshole reality hits me square in the face. Much as my brain sorts this and gives me a logical output that screams ‘walk away for good,’ I can’t back down yet.
I know I have nothing to prove, and I know he’d be too pigheaded to acknowledge my points even if they made sense to him. But old rivalries die hard.
The one and only weapon I have in my arsenal is the one I never dared touch. The one that glowed with so much power, I wasn’t sure what unleashing it would bring. But I’m going to try now, because if I have to stand up to him because of old, nagging habits, I’ll be brave enough to bring new tactics. This has to end. And I intend to come out the victor for once.
“Your art is shocking. Technically shoddy. But shocking.” I shrug. I shake, but I shrug it off. “Maybe it’s only good for shock value.”
The blade is sharper than I expected it to be.
Or maybe I’m being too antiquated calling this weapon a blade. Maybe this is, more accurately, a chest of explosives that’s been waiting for the spark to detonate it.
“What the hell would you know?” my father explodes, standing so quickly his stomach bumps the table and he knocks his chair back. Wine sloshes out of my glass. My father falters to one side, his arm out and shaking. “You egotistical little shit! You were raised with the best, had every luxury and opportunity dropped onto a golden plate for you to devour! You have no idea what it is to go hungry. What it is to have to fight and claw away from a man who loves nothing but himself.”
Now it’s my turn to stand, to face him head on and look him in the eye for once. “Every single thing you gave me came with a huge price tag! I paid for every opportunity by bearing your twisted hatred. And it’s funny you talk of men who only love themselves. It looks like your father passed more than his alcoholism to you.”
We’re both breathing hard, but my father’s breaths sound dangerously labored and wheezy. My victory, long waited for, echoes through me, leaving me feeling hollow and stupid. I’m worried he’s going to collapse in front of me and have a heart attack. And I know I’ll never be able to live with myself if the last words I said to him were the ones I knew would knife him in the heart.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t backtrack now,” he snarls, taking out his wallet and dropping a few hundred dollar bills on the table. “You finally show some balls, and now you’re going to let them curl back up inside you?” He gives me a smile that’s equal parts hateful and proud. “You’re growing bold. If you can put that on canvas instead of painting like some kind of pussy, maybe you’ll have a successful show.”
He grabs the cigarette, soggy with red wine, from the spattered white cloth and points it at me before putting it between his lips. He talks around it. “We’ll see what the critics say. They loved my low-brow, shock-value crap.” His chuckle is menacing, and then he’s gone. “What will they think of your perfect, bloodless art?”
He’s gone and I’m left staring at the remnants of our disastrous meal.
It looks like a bomb went off.
17 LYDIA
; I’m sitting at the Indian place Isaac asked me to the first time he proposed dinner. I settle back in my chair and smile because I have a secret.
A gorgeous, sweet, brilliant, hot-as-hell secret who keeps me up moaning all night, makes the most delicious frittatas to fortify me after an enthusiastic round of sex, and never runs out of interesting, hilarious conversation.
I scroll through my phone, catching up on emails while I wait for Isaac. I convinced him to do a late lunch here and a later dinner at his place. Secretly, I was just worried he’d get my clothes off and forget about food entirely. Not that I mind, but it takes energy to keep up with him. I need to eat.
I came early so I could make a memory imprint of this place, this date. There’s no specific reason why today is so special. I just want to enjoy every single second I have with him. I used to rush. I used to rush every meal, every date, every sexual encounter, every day.
I hold my phone tight and look up, panicked just recalling the pace I used to live my life at. I deep breathe. I center on the third eye. Nothing really helps. Because that life is my past for the immediate present.
But that life—in a more concentrated, fast-track form—will be my future if my firm decides to ask me back.
Which is what I want.
Right?
I don’t want to live my life in my yoga pants, going to classes I don’t really need, not using the degree I worked so hard to get.
I assume there have to be happy mediums. There must be other firms. But, without references, how could I realistically get a job? I’m not delusional enough to assume my ego would be just fine with taking a lesser position than I had before.
Plus that, any other firm would expect just as much and more. That’s the life I signed up for. I knew exactly what I was getting into and willing grabbed at it.
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