The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin'

by Lamb, Wally

  Walking out of the theater, it makes me feel a little stupid when Orion starts talking about what a genius Woody Allen is. He asks me if I’d be up for ice cream. And where does he drive us to? Friendly’s! But it’s kind of nice being a customer for a change instead of the scooper. We get cones at the take-out window, then go back to the car. And just when I’m thinking about how I don’t have any business going out with someone who’s so intelligent and sophisticated—someone who’s got the word doctor at the front of his name—he takes his first lick of the cone and his ice cream falls off it and into his lap. It strikes me funny—nervous funny—and I try not to laugh. But then he starts laughing, so I let it out. And when he puts his empty cone on his forehead and says look, he’s a unicorn, I laugh so hard that I’m kind of snorting. “Sheesh, how old are you, anyway?” I ask, and he goes that he’s twenty-nine going on six. So I was close. Albie would have thrown a fit if he did something this spastic, but Orion just thinks it’s funny. And he’s a psychologist, for cripe’s sake. His father never even wanted him.

  When he drops me off back at my place, he doesn’t try to kiss me or anything, but he asks for my number so he can call me again. I tell him yeah, that would be nice. And two nights later, when the phone rings and I know it’s not my brother’s time to call, I run so fast to the phone that I stub my toe on my stupid coffee table.

  For our second date (I don’t count the time he helped me with my tire and took me to Bonanza as a real date), he picks me up on Sunday morning because he’s taking us on a hike. His hair is still wet from his shower, and when we get in the car, I can smell his clean smell, which I like. And recognize. It’s Irish Spring soap. I buy Irish Spring, too, when it’s on sale. Otherwise, I buy the store brand. I like those TV commercials for Irish Spring, where the people talk with Irish accents like my ancestors must have talked with. Our great-grandparents on my mother’s side were Irish immigrants, Donald told me once. She was a maid at some rich family’s house and he delivered coal there, which was how they met. It’s funny how people meet. Orion and me, for instance. If he got his shirts washed, starched, and pressed at the Troy Laundry instead of where I work, we’d still be strangers.

  On our third date, Orion does kiss me, and two dates later we make out. I like it—his lips on mine, his tongue in my mouth, his hand up inside my blouse. “Okay?” he keeps asking, and I keep nodding yes. It’s more like what I’ve done with Priscilla than what I used to do with Albie. Mostly what I did for Albie, I mean. He never really cared about how I was feeling. But with Orion, it’s more like . . . what? Sharing, I guess. Like, when we went out to eat earlier that night and got one dessert with two forks.

  The first time he asks me over to his apartment for dinner, I’m nervous. But he seems a little nervous, too. Not slick or anything. He pours us some wine, and when he hands me my glass, his hand is shaking a little. He goes into the kitchen to check on what he’s cooking, and I look around. His wall-to-wall carpet has lines in it, which means he’s just vacuumed, probably because I was coming over. He’s got nice furniture and nice posters in metal frames. Arty posters, like the stuff at the museum I go to. The door to his bedroom is open. It’s a little messy in there, which I kind of like. It makes him less perfect. Not that I keep a messy bedroom, just the opposite. I like to keep things neat, everything in place. But his kind of reminds me of Donald’s old room. “Time to eat,” he says. “Come on in.” He’s got a round oak kitchen table which he’s already set. His plates are that Fiestaware I’ve seen in shopping circulars. The napkins are cloth, not paper. Classy.

  Dinner is salad, pasta, and these rolled-up meat things that have cheese and herbs and chopped nuts inside. Braciole, he calls them. “Want a little more gravy?” he asks. That’s what he calls tomato sauce: gravy. He says he’s had the braciole simmering in it all afternoon, which is why they’re so tender. And I’m like, oh my god, this is the best food I’ve ever tasted. While we eat, he starts telling me about how he’s a runner—that he runs three miles a day during the week on his lunchtime and five or six miles on the weekend. And about his work—about the students who come in to see him. Kids who have just broken up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, overachievers who have just gotten their first C−. “But then there are the tougher cases.”

  “Like what?” I say.

  He says some of the kids he counsels are trying to survive some serious childhood trauma. “A house fire that took someone’s life, a really bad car accident. Or physical abuse, sexual abuse—incest in particular.”

  I drop my fork when he says that, and I’m furious with myself. I don’t want him psychoanalyzing me like he does his patients. “Whoops, clumsy me,” I say, trying to laugh it off. But he’s just looking at me, not smiling.

  “Did I hit a nerve just then?” he asks me.

  “What? No!” But he’s still looking at me. Still not saying anything. My mind is racing. I told him about my mother, didn’t I? Yeah, I did. “Well, kind of,” I say. “When you just said that thing about childhood trauma. I started thinking about the flood. The one my mother died in.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Do you ever go back there? Find yourself reliving that night. Because there’s something called post-traumatic—”

  “What? No.” Stop looking at me! “I don’t . . . I wouldn’t say I relive it. I just think about it sometime. That’s all.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone about it? Gone to a therapist?”

  “Me? No. I don’t need to do that.”

  “How about when you were a little girl? Right after it happened. Did anyone take you to see a counselor?”

  “A shrink, you mean?” I shake my head. “Gee, you’re not going to make me lie down on your couch and tell you about my childhood, are you? I thought this was a date, not an appointment!” I was trying to make it sound like a joke, but it comes out kind of snotty.

  He tells me he’s sorry, that he hopes he hasn’t made me feel defensive. “And you’re right. I’m off the clock. The doctor is out.” He’s smiling.

  I smile back. “By the way, this meal is really delicious. You’ll have to give me the recipe.”

  It works. He starts telling me about how he doesn’t really follow a recipe. That he cooks “intuitively” the way his nonna did.

  “Your what?”

  “My grandmother. A little of this, a little of that. More wine?”

  “Yes, please,” I say and slide my glass over to him.

  By my third glass of wine, I’m feeling warm and relaxed. Happy to be here with him again. And it’s not just the wine. It’s also because, except for when he asked me that thing about childhood trauma, he makes me feel safe or something. In a way, it’s like being with my brother, Donald, who I could always trust. I start telling him about Donald, how he could be funny sometimes. How he used to wiggle his ears to make me laugh. He says oh, he can do that, too, and I tell him no he can’t, and he does it. Not as good as my brother, though. When he did it, his forehead didn’t move the way Orion’s does. When I tell him I need to use his bathroom, he says sure, go ahead. It’s right off his bedroom. “Just excuse the clutter,” he says.

  After I flush the toilet and wash my hands, I pull back his shower curtain and sure enough, there it is. A bar of Irish Spring. He uses Prell shampoo, too, I see. I’m tempted to peek inside his medicine cabinet before I leave, but I don’t. I’m not a snoop.

  When I go back to the kitchen, I see that he’s already put dessert on the table—slices of ice cream with nuts and cherries in it. There’s also a bottle of some bright green liquor on the table, and he asks me do I want him to pour some on my ice cream. “No way,” I tell him. “Liquor on top of ice cream? That’s like when one of our dry cleaning customers who comes from Maine told me that people up in Maine drink Moxie with milk in it, and I was like bleagh.” He laughs. Tells me he finds my “unvarnished honesty” refreshing. Which, I’m pretty sure, is a compliment.

  When we’ve finished with our ice cream, Orion says he’s gon
e to the video store and rented us a Sissy Spacek movie so that I can see my “doppelgänger.”

  “My what?” I go. My double, he says.

  The movie is Coal Miner’s Daughter. After we start watching it, he puts his arm around me like he did when we went to see Manhattan, and I rest my head on his shoulder. “She won the Oscar for this,” he says. “She’s got dark hair here, but she’s actually a strawberry blonde with freckles. Like you.” He reaches up and touches his finger to my nose. “So what do you think? See the resemblance?” I don’t but tell him I do, a little. “Except you’re much prettier,” he says. Which is funny, because I’ve just been thinking how much prettier she is than me.

  A few minutes later, he turns my face to his and starts kissing me. And a few minutes after that, neither of us is really watching the movie anymore. Then, out of the blue, he goes, “You know, Annie, I’d really like to make love to you tonight, but only if you’re ready. I don’t want to pressure you.” And out of the blue, instead of telling him I’m not ready, I tell him I am. Am I? Or is it the wine? The Fiestaware and the smell of Irish Spring? I’m confused. I can feel my heart beating fast and I’m not sure if it’s from excitement or fear. Or both.

  We leave the dishes on the table, and holding my hand, he leads me into his bedroom. We sit on his bed and start kissing again. He unbuttons his shirt and takes it off. Pulls his undershirt over his head. This is the first time I’ve seen him with no shirt on—his chest with the little brownish nipples, his belly button (an outsie) at the bottom of his hard, flat stomach. I like what I see. He unbuckles his belt. “You’re trembling,” he says. “You sure about this? Because we don’t have to if you’re not sure.” When I tell him it’s okay, that I am sure—which I’m not, really—he holds my hand against his warm chest muscles and starts massaging the back of my neck. I touch my fingertips to his wrist and feel a pulse. Calm myself to its steady rhythm. “Excuse me,” he says and reaches over to his nightstand. Takes out a condom, rips open the foil with his teeth. While he’s putting it on, I lie back on the bed, crawl beneath his green plaid sheets, and undress myself. It’s kind of like walking out to the end of a diving board just before you jump off. . . .

  With Kent, and later with Albie, I had to go someplace else until it was over. But with Orion, I stay right here in the moment. His hands are all over me, massaging my shoulders, my back, the insides of my thighs. His fingertips are fluttery against my clitoris, and it feels as delicious as the meal he’s made. I don’t deserve someone like him, but Orion doesn’t know that. . . .

  I don’t have an orgasm or anything, but when he gets on top of me and enters me slowly, it feels good. No, better than good. I’ve never really understood before why a woman would want a man inside of her, but now I get it. With each of Orion’s thrusts, I want the next one, and the next. I lift my legs and put my heels against the small of his back to take him in even deeper. We rock together, slowly at first, and then faster, and then crazy fast. His fingers are pressing hard against the back of my shoulders. His breath starts coming out in quick blasts against my neck. Then, abruptly, he stops. Shudders. He stays on top of me until I can feel him lose his hard-on. “Phew,” he says and rolls off. For a minute or more, we just lie there, side by side, not talking. Then he takes my hand and squeezes it. “You good?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh. That was nice.”

  “Yeah, for me, too,” he goes. “Do you know what I love about you? Why I think I may be falling in love with you?” Wait. He’s falling in love? With me? He must mean me because I’m the only other one here. He says something about my lack of pretense, and something else I don’t catch because I’m thinking about something Candace, the woman who cuts my hair, said the last time I was at her shop: that most men are scared to even say the word love. That they think if they do, it’s somehow going to put a hex on them. But Orion’s just said it. I heard him with my own ears. And who knows? Maybe I’m falling in love with him, too. Only I’m not even sure I know what love is. What does it mean when you say you love someone? And who have I ever really loved? Mama, that’s who. And Daddy. And Donald. But Mama most of all. And maybe now Orion.

  I guess I must be in love with him, because the next night when my brother calls me, he says I sound like I’m in a good mood and asks me what’s new. “I have a boyfriend, that’s what,” I tell him. Which, despite who I am—and maybe only because of the secrets I’m determined to withhold from Orion—I do. I have a handsome Italian-Chinese boyfriend who has a nice apartment and a good job and who keeps calling me. A boyfriend who’s had sex with me three times now and has a nice body and is not afraid to say the word love.

  For the next several weeks, things go great between Orion and me. He takes me out to nice restaurants, or else we stay in at his place, eat takeout or the meals he cooks, and then watch TV. Sometimes we have sex afterward, and sometimes we just get in his bed, cuddle, and drift off to sleep. He’s only been to my dinky apartment twice, and both times I’ve felt embarrassed and a little bit scared about what it might say about who I really am. The first time he came over, he noticed the wobble in my coffee table, turned it upside down, and said he could fix it. The second time, he brought a screwdriver with him, tightened the screws, and now it’s good as new.

  I’ve told him some stuff: about how, after my mother died, my father turned into an alcoholic and I had to go into foster care. When I tell him about how scared I was having to go and live with strangers, he says something weird but really sweet. “Too bad I didn’t know you back then. I would have come and rescued you.” Like he was Prince Charming or something. Which he is, in a way, because he’s rescued me from the simple, uncomplicated life I thought I liked until I realized how much I was missing. How lonely that life had been: going to work, going home and watching TV, going places by myself on weekends. He knows I didn’t go to college, but not that I didn’t even graduate from high school and got my G.E.D. instead. I’ve told him nothing about Albie or my miscarriage. One Saturday, after I’ve mentioned how much I like museums, he drives us up to Boston and we go to this amazing museum which used to be some rich lady’s mansion and now is open to the public. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and when I tell him that, he says he can’t wait to show me more stuff. Take me to other places that he knows I’ll love. That this is only the beginning. Maybe that’s what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try new things but still makes you feel safe. But that’s only my side of it. What I still don’t really understand is what’s in it for him. Why he keeps saying he loves me.

  I get nervous when Orion tells me he’s going to introduce me to his mother. She lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and works at a ritzy private school teaching talented and gifted kids—the kind of student I wasn’t. There’s some big summer conference at the university where Orion works, and she’s coming up for it. We’re driving over there, picking his mom up at the dormitory where she’s staying and taking her to lunch.

  When Orion goes in to get her, I move to the backseat. Maria is plump but pretty, and real Italian-looking. She sticks her hand between the front seats, shakes mine, and says she’s happy to meet me. “Happy to meet you, too,” I say. When I tell her I like her blouse, she laughs and says she’s had it for years. So? I can still like it, can’t I? It was a compliment. Orion kind of resembles her but kind of doesn’t because of his Chinese-shaped eyes.

  On the way to the restaurant, he asks her how her conference is going, and she tells him a bunch of stuff that I’m not really listening to because I’m thinking about some of the things he’s told me. How his father wouldn’t marry his mother after she got pregnant. God, even Albie wasn’t that much of a heel. Poor Maria! After Orion was born, he said, he and his mother had to go live with her parents, which they did all while he was growing up. . . . Orion’s told me about the first time he met his Grandfather Oh. It was when he was going into his fourth year of h
igh school. He and his mom went up to the restaurant he owned in Boston because Orion wanted to go to Boston University, and Maria needed him to help pay for it. Which he agreed to do, even though he wasn’t too happy about it. That was pretty brave of her, to do that. Pretty ballsy, as Priscilla used to say. Shit, I wish I hadn’t just thought about Priscilla. What if, in this car, I suddenly go temporarily insane and say something like, “Hey, Maria, I’m not only having sex with your son, but I’ve had it with a woman, too—orgasms and everything.” Thinking about saying that makes my stomach do flip-flops and I have to crack open my window and get some air. It’s just nerves, I guess. I’d never, ever say something like that, even if I did go crazy because I’m so . . . what do you call it? Not depressed, but it sounds like that. I’ve heard Orion say it about some student he’s been seeing. Oh, I know. Not depressed. Repressed. . . . Orion said his grandfather was real rude to his mother that day when they went to see him, but that he was nice to him. And that, after Orion was at Boston University, sometimes him and his friends would go to his grandfather’s restaurant for Sunday dim sum and they always got to eat for free. When I asked him what dim sum was—I was starting to ask him stuff by then without feeling like he was going to think I was stupid—he said he’d rather show me than tell me. And the next weekend he drove us back to Boston, to Chinatown, and we ate at the place his grandfather used to own before he died. It was upstairs in this big, noisy dining room where these little, unsmiling Chinese women wheeled the food around in carts and you chose whichever of the little hors d’oeuvrey things you wanted and most of them were delicious, except for the batter-fried chicken feet which, when I realized what they were, I spit out in my napkin and made him laugh. He laughed some more after he showed me how to eat with chopsticks but I kept dropping things. Then he had one of the Chinese women get me a fork. She nodded but acted kind of put out and when she came back with my fork, she threw it on the table instead of placing it. And Orion said, “Excuse me. Don’t throw it at her. Please pick it up again and hand it to her.” And after she did and walked away, I thanked him and he said no thanks were necessary. That he liked coming to the aid of damsels in distress. Which, even though it’s not like I was tied to the railroad tracks or anything, I thought was so sweet. Protective, kind of. . . . After we ate our dim sum, instead of driving right back, we walked around the city. And when we got to the Prudential tower, Orion took me on this zooming elevator ride to the top. When we went over to the windows and I looked down, I felt a little dizzy and went, “Whoa.” He put his arm around me to steady me, and the two of us looked out at all the buildings and the boats on the river. And when I said that I’d never been this high up before, Orion said, “No? You’ve never ridden in a plane?” I shook my head and he said, “Well, we’ll have to see to that.” Then he said again how much he liked showing me things, and that that was one of the reasons he loved me. And that maybe someday he would hire someone to take us on a ride in one of those balloons so that we could float through the sky. Like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz, I thought, but didn’t say it. Then he started talking about the kinds of things astronauts must see when they go on space flights, but I wasn’t really listening because I was thinking: balloon rides, plane rides, dim sum: Yikes! . . .