Jon said a curt hello and took my bag, then invited me to sit on one of the two couches (or was that sofas?) that made an L-shape. He sat down on the other one, on the other side of the room.
“So,” I bellowed across the echoing space. “How were the rabbits?”
As he spoke I slowly inched my way along the couch so that at least I could be closer to his piece of furniture. He didn’t budge. I turned to glimpse my tattered overnight bag on the shiny floor and suddenly a panic arose in me: he didn’t really want me there. I remembered my friend Claire who I’d worked on a play with years before. “Sure, you can store the entire set in my basement!” she’d offered. A friend and I rented a truck, only to turn up and find out that she had no basement. “You should have told me you hadn’t seen the basement,” my English companion explained on the way back. “English people offer. We offer to have you over for dinner, to make you tea, to store your furniture. We don’t mean it.” She chuckled at my naivety. “It’s just our way of saying we like you.” Did Jon—English Jon—like me?
“What would you like to do tonight?” he asked.
Um, you, I wanted to answer. “My stomach isn’t feeling great,” I blurted out.
“Let’s go to Golders Green and get you kosher chicken soup.”
Granted, a nice offer, but he seemed a bit too eager to get me out of his house.
“Why don’t we go for a walk first?” he suggested. “I want to show you the architectural detailing in the neighborhood.”
Outside, we stepped side by side, not touching, the gap between us palpable, reminding me of artist Rachel Whiteread’s solid resin casts of the normally invisible spaces beneath chairs. As Jon pointed out the local aesthetic features, I learnt that he was passionate about domestic design and was involved in house refurbishment projects in various countries. I liked that about him, of course, but what the hell was going on?
“Listen, can I ask you something?” My brashness now shocked me. “I’m not English, as you well know, and so I don’t understand. I mean, do you like me? Like, like me? Are you attracted to me?”
Pause.
Idiot.
“There are two types of women,” Jon finally answered, rounding a corner. I followed, my heart hammering wildly. I hadn’t planned to put him—or myself—on the spot. “The kind that you want to be friends with. And the kind that you like romantically.”
All I could feel was that space between us, my hand unheld, waving free-fall in the evening breeze. I knew what was coming: the “we’re-better-as-friends” soliloquy. Well, I needed to leave England anyway and this would give me the final push out. It doesn’t matter, I told myself.
“And you.” He paused. I held my breath. “You are both.”
I was both? “So you do like me.” I turned away and smiled.
“Yes,” he answered, still marching at a clip. “I’d rather not continue this now.”
“OK.” That was fine. He was English, this was uncomfortable for him, I respected that. Besides, I had my answer and felt good. Great, actually. “Tell me more about the value of Victorian stained glass,” I said to change the topic.
“OK,” he said. “And then let’s go get you that soup.”
That night, I crept (perhaps dashed) over to Jon’s side of the bed, but was rebuffed. “Spending the night doesn’t need to mean sex,” he said. “Let’s take this slowly. I like you.”
Frustrated, still confused, I nestled beside him instead.
“Um, can you move over?” Jon asked.
“Over where?” Was this another Ben, kicking me out?
“To your side.” He gestured to the empty half of the king-size bed. “I need room to sleep.”
I rolled back along the dark blue über-masculine sheets (did I mention the iron metal headboard?) all the way to the other end of the mattress, to my own hemisphere. No snuggling here, but lots of snoring. I listened to Jon’s snuffling, trying to relax to its rhythm, sinking into the soft bed, thinking that this wasn’t that bad. After all, I had a stomachache. Why had I even rushed it?
The next morning, Jon made me coffee and drove me home. I still didn’t know what was going on between us, but for the first time, I felt that that was fine.
The itchiest thing of all, I reminded myself, was the act of healing. I didn’t always need to scratch.
• • •
WHEN I INVITED Jon to my Rosh Hashanah dinner, I expected him to decline. He didn’t.
It would be the first time he’d see my space. And my friends. The first time I would envision “us” through their eyes. Not to mention, the first time he’d try my food. I panicked, and made sure Yolanda, an American performance artist who lived in a semihabitable industrial plant, was coming over to help cook. What did I know from honey-baked chicken and kugel? Yolanda was hands-on, confident at everyday things.
“Your place is cute,” Jon said as soon as he came up the rickety staircase with his overnight bag, which he slung on my bed. I followed his gaze as he gave himself a tour of my triple-cleaned space. “Really cute.” I breathed a sigh of relief, hoping he meant it, that “cute” was good, and that my mismatched cutlery and plates would also fall under its heading.
Yolanda had been busy hacking chicken thighs in my minuscule kitchen while I’d been preparing the one salad I knew how to make. Jon followed me into the room and watched. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said as I sliced pears. “You’ll slash yourself.” He mimed a different cutting technique, then he gave me a peck on the cheek. I blushed in front of Yolanda, whom I’d not told about our courtship.
He stood behind us, peering. “You should really put the cheese in last,” he said. “It’ll get soggy.”
“OK, thanks.” I was curt. Enough with the critique.
Then he turned to Yolanda. “Way too much breading,” he guffawed. “You’re sure that will cook? I’m not in the mood for kosher salmonella.”
She expertly ignored him while rolling her eyes so that I could see. My oven was starting to heat and I too began to fume. Is this how a person acted when invited for dinner? More than that, I was getting whiffs of Evan. Was I once again going to be shunned and dumped for my domestic fallibility?
Fortunately, the doorbell rang with my final guests. “I’ll get it,” Jon said, clearly wanting to be useful.
“OK,” I answered cheerfully, and waited for the car crash. The arrivals were a couple of reserved and highly intellectual avant-garde Israeli architects. How would brash Jon talk to them? Serves him right. I watched him plop himself down on my futon as if he’d been here a thousand times.
I finished the salad, Yolanda continuing to roll her eyes whenever we heard him make a joke about the chefs taking their time, and my heat grew until I was burning up. Domestic chores were the end of me. I could not do this, could not fail again. I didn’t want to be with someone controlling, condescending, obsessed with home, with cooking, judging me the whole time. I decided: I would end it that very night.
But as I brought out the first course, I saw him talking to the couple. They both seemed so at ease, smiling, drinking in his words and then responding with enthusiasm—about their work, architecture, Jewish identity in the UK. He filled their glasses. Jon’s openness was what had attracted me, I remembered. It comforted me. I loved his frankness, for better and for worse. I had to calm down: it was me, this time, who was shifting moods, black and white. “Delicious,” he said, biting into my salad, into the chicken.
When he went to the bathroom, my Israeli friends gave me the thumbs-up.
When everyone left, I was brash back. “You were rude in the kitchen.”
“Sucks for you,” Jon said. “You’ll have to put up with me.”
“If you’re lucky,” I mumbled. He kissed me, a sweet one, for a sweet new year.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING, we were woken by his phone. “
Sure, I’ll come get them,” Jon offered to someone who I assumed was his mother. I was about to make a crack about being a mama’s boy when he told me he was picking up Kate’s kids from the train station.
Kate? Of the rabbits? “Who is she?” I asked, forcing myself to sound calm.
“Just a friend,” Jon said, then got up to shower. I decided to file away this troubling information for later.
That night, he called to see if I was free. “I’m too tired,” I said, as I walked up Islington High Street. It was the truth. And, it was starting to dawn on me, he wasn’t going anywhere fast. I too could take my time. Jon wouldn’t suddenly forget me, or dive into an incomprehensible mood in which I didn’t exist. He wouldn’t retreat into his head, or turn his caring attention to rage and so I didn’t have to grab and squeeze it hard. “But thanks for coming over,” I said. “I’m glad you liked my flat.”
“It’s sweet,” Jon said. “Very you. I admire that you support yourself. Just one thing. You really need nicer towels.”
“You’re so not English,” I said, noting that I was not offended, did not take his comment as a criticism of my being, just of my linen. I also felt proud: he’d noticed what was probably the most significant accomplishment of my life thus far. Not wild success but self-sufficiency. His frankness made me trust him. His openness made me candid in a way I’d never been—with anyone. I was about to laugh off his request, but then recalled Evan and his desire for comfort. Back then, I hadn’t been able to hear his demands, which seemed selfish, beside the point. But now I could listen. Sure, I couldn’t really afford nice towels, but some things were an investment. I turned around and headed straight for Marks and Spencer.
That night, I noticed that Jon had left a green travel toothbrush on the sunk edge of my sink, in a little toothbrush bed.
• • •
NEARLY TEN DAYS later—the ten days of forgiveness between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the days of cleansing, honesty, renewal—I walked up the stairs to Jon’s flat. I’d been visiting an art historian friend in Spain for a long weekend and Jon had texted me, punctually, reliably, every twenty-four hours. I liked it. It was as if he’d been Ferberizing me, teaching me that he’d return at regular intervals, so I could relax and let go. No surprises. Then, on the last day, I checked my inbox, and found he’d e-mailed a few days earlier, asking me to come over the night I returned to London. He’d signed it “Love Jon.”
It was now that night, and we began to set out tea and cake on his kitchen table, when more words skidded from my mouth. “I need to talk to you about something,” I said, cringing at the girlfriendliness of it, careful about proceeding. How I hated we-have-to-talk talks. “It made me uncomfortable when Kate called the other morning, asking you to pick up her kids.” I braced myself, ready for him to yell, tell me I was being unreasonable, critical, selfish, that in fact, he loved her. “If we’re going to take this seriously, or going to date, then I feel like you need to make some boundaries—”
“OK,” Jon said, cutting me off. “Let me think about it.”
Two days later we sat on a bench in a small park near a gathering of my art historian colleagues. Jon had burst into the awkward crowd boisterously, trying to change the conversation from critical theory and the fluctuating position of the contemporary London art scene to sports cars. At first I cringed in shame, but then I just laughed. That was him. Not me. He wasn’t my spokesperson.
“I talked to Kate,” he now said. “I told her that you were my girlfriend, and it wasn’t appropriate for her to call me at all hours and expect me to care for her kids. I said we had to make boundaries.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“I was so taken by how you told me. You were calm and considered, and not huffy and histrionic. I was able to see that you were right.”
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” I said, inspired by my emotional success, proud of how I’d been handling things, not even realizing I’d been mature, and especially, attractive in my maturity. I had spoken my mind, been honest, and managed the problem. I took his hand. “I can’t stay here.”
“The park?”
“No, London. I just don’t think it’s where I really belong. I can’t see a future for myself here.”
“Good to know,” Jon said. “I’d move to New York in a flash.”
Could this be true? “Speaking of which, I’m going to Montreal in a few weeks,” I added. “I’ll be gone for a month. What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I totally understand if you want to, you know, take a break. I mean, I don’t want to make assumptions—”
Jon laughed. “Let’s just assume we’ll be together until we aren’t. Also, I’ll come to Montreal. I haven’t been in ages and I want to meet your family. Speaking of which, do you want to break the Yom Kippur fast at my parents’ house?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering if this too-good-to-be-true scenario was a joke, a slice of unreality that would disintegrate into crumbs at any second. But then I stopped myself from thinking, and instead, suggested we go get dinner.
• • •
JON PICKED ME up in his convertible, the roof down on an unusually sunny London afternoon. I got in and leaned over to kiss him on the lips.
“Do I look OK?” I asked. I was excited but also nervous. It had been years since I’d been invited to meet the parents. And even longer since I’d been invited to their house, my boyfriend’s childhood abode, the site of his formative years, where his dreams were constructed, his personality crystallized, his perspective honed, his template for intimacy sizzled into his psyche like a panini press.
“You look perfect,” he said. “For someone who claims to be fasting.”
“I am fasting,” I stressed. “Some of us have willpower.”
“Bo-ring.”
We drove up the hilly streets of Hampstead, right past Freud’s house—a shared landmark for us, I thought. Jon, like most British Jews, had spent most of his life living in that neighborhood; I, like most North American Jews, had spent most of my life in psychoanalysis. This was the house Freud had fled to from the Nazis, the house to which he’d brought all his collections. His tchotchkes were still there, but now, displayed as a museum, behind glass, organized, safe.
I took a deep breath and tried to relax in the warmth. But the wind blew into my face, screwing up my eye shadow. Jon was a ridiculous driver. He swerved through the winding roads that barely fit his car, let alone the oncoming traffic. Compared to all my artsy boyfriends, his sports car seemed manly and independent, and so his crazy driving didn’t generally bother me. I liked how he pushed his way through the crowded city. I admired how he wasn’t afraid to take risks—most of the time.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cried as his tires came to a screeching halt in front of a Victorian hedge.
“Listen,” he said, turning to me. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
My heart stopped. This wasn’t like him. He didn’t do drama.
“What?” I was ready for the worst. He was turning around. Taking me somewhere else. He’d changed his mind about sharing this most intimate of relations and spaces. It was over. This was the end. He was dying. He was already dead. I was dead.
“My mother has a lot of stuff,” he said.
“Huh?”
“My mother. She has a lot of stuff.”
“Whatever,” I said loudly. A lot of stuff? Ha. He had no idea how much junk it would take to impress me.
“No, I mean a lot of stuff,” he stressed. “Vases. Plates. Newspapers.”
“Just drive already.” I shivered and cut the conversation short. Was this some kind of joke? I had—for sure—kept my childhood home a secret from him, from everyone. Had he somehow found out? “I’m starving.”
“All right, then,” he said, pounding on the ga
s. The car jolted back into action. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Warn me? But before I had time to think anymore we arrived at his house, set back off the road. It was much larger and more exquisite than my childhood home, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the circular driveway. It was filled—with three rusted Volvos. From the 1980s.
“I told you,” Jon mumbled as we walked up to the front door. He rang the bell.
His mother answered. She was short and thin, with died pinky-orange hair and svelte lips outlining an angular but large smile. “So nice to meet you, Judy.”
“So nice to meet you too,” I answered, my own lips doing yoga stretches past my ears. But I was no longer paying attention to her face. Instead, my eyes were darting around, taking it all in. Next to her was a human-sized tower of junk mail. Behind her I could make out a long line of Tiffany lamps. Farther back, a whole room piled with wooden dining room tables.
My mother has a lot of stuff.
“It’s time to break the fast,” she said.
“It certainly is,” I barely eked out. My pulse pounded. Everything I’d run away from was now in front of me, closing in on me. I could still run, I thought, catch the bus on the corner. I eyed a heap of yellowing newspapers.
Jon saw my stare. He gestured to the stack. “That pile is structural.”
Huh? In my dizzy state it took me a second to realize he was referring to it as if it was a wall. Ha! It was structural, I thought. The crux. The core.
But more than that, it was a joke. All these years of kidding around, and yet the one thing I never joked about was the home that I came from. Never. Not once.
“Come in,” Jon’s mother said.
I held my breath, inched my way inside, looked around me at a real live version of my childhood angst and, for the first time, exploded into laughter.
• • •
JON’S FAMILY WAS wealthier than mine, so their hoarding comprised a different class of object. The dining room, bigger than any of my parents’ rooms, had antique chairs stacked on their backs, boxes from Sotheby’s, collector toasters, and chandeliers salvaged from synagogues across Europe. But what surprised me even more than the extensive Edwardian decanter collection was Jon’s attitude. Before we sat down to eat, we wandered through their sprawling four-story Victorian detached, as he pointed out a full-sized library card catalogue and a population of ceramic tumblers. “Just in case we have sixty-five guests for dinner,” he joked.
White Walls Page 21
