“Who is it?”
“Cass, I’m the only other person who lives here.” Astrid slipped into the room, closed the door behind her, and paused to take in the scene.
Her roommate was on the floor in the lotus position with a broad sheet of white paper before her. Surrounding it were little pots of paint. Her arms and curly hair were dotted with specks of yellow and red.
“What are you doing?”
Cass held her palms out, which were completely green, and gave her a patronizing look. “Finger painting.”
“Of course you are. Listen, do you have any condoms?”
“You got back together with Simon?” Cass tilted her head and grinned, eyes sleepy and bloodshot.
“No, I have somebody over. Not Simon.”
“Oh . . .” It took her a long moment to register this fact. “Oh, wow . . .” Her eyes began to close, and her body swayed like it might topple over.
“Cass!”
“Yeah. Mmm . . .” Eyelids back open to their usual half-mast position.
“Condoms.”
“Sure, sure.” She pointed to her dresser. “Middle drawer. Take as many as you need. The night is long.”
Astrid searched through striped rainbow socks and tasseled knit caps until she found a strip of foil squares.
“Thank you!”
She hurried back to Theo, who was standing beside the sewing table.
“Where’s your bathroom?”
She pointed the way.
Back in her room, Astrid scrambled to find something more alluring than the beige cotton panties and mismatched white bra she had on, swapped them for a dark and lacy set. A quick swipe of deodorant, comb through the hair, swig of water, and she was ready. Almost. Perfume? All she could find was the vanilla oil Cass had given her for Christmas, so she dabbed some on the insides of her wrists and behind her ears.
The second he closed the door behind him, they came at each other with a new ferocity. This was going to happen. Theo navigated her to the bed and on the way, Astrid tripped over a stray shoe and sent them tumbling onto the mattress. They laughed low, deep-throated laughs, their ankles dangling off the edge, and undressed each other with a greedy impatience. When they were down to their underwear, Theo paused.
“Hey, weren’t you wearing a different bra?”
“Um, no.”
“Huh. It didn’t feel so lacy earlier. You sure you didn’t get all sexy for me while I was gone?” He teased.
“You’re asking too many questions.” She reached for his nipple rings, fingered the area where skin was stretched over metal, and gave the rings a light tug. A happy sigh greeted her, so she tugged again.
He shifted her over so she was completely on top of him, their bodies parallel. Astrid tensed for a moment, prayed for an even distribution of weight, but when she felt him pressing up against her, noticeably aroused, she relaxed and kissed him with no reservations.
“I have another question,” he whispered when they stopped to catch their breaths. “Why do you smell like cookies?”
“It’s the scented candle.”
“The candle is cinnamon. You smell like my favorite Christmas cookies and it’s kinda making me crazy.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?”
He laughed a low dirty laugh and unfastened her bra. Before she could toss it aside, he caught a strap and gave it another look. “Definitely not the same one as earlier.”
“Will you please shut up and finish undressing me?”
He complied, and in a surge of boldness she reciprocated, adding his boxers to the pile of discarded clothing beside the bed.
Once they were naked, Astrid felt a contradicting mixture of curiosity and bashfulness. She could only see his body peripherally or up close, as she was touching and kissing it, but she wanted to zoom out and take in his form as a whole. At the same time, a stronger urge pulled her against him, made her wish she could move through him like water.
She got a condom ready, climbed on top of him.
A hush at their joining, an orchestra of synapses firing, even through the veil of tipsiness. She moved against him while his hands navigated her body, their hipbones meeting and softly grinding against each other. It was an ascent with no end, a labyrinth of skin and light and heat.
After a while, Theo said, “This feels great, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen for me. The alcohol . . .”
“Same here. Let’s take a break.” She stopped moving and carefully withdrew her body from his. His stomach was damp with sweat, and she licked it as she rolled off. He took off the condom and dropped it in the wastebasket beside her bed.
They lay on their sides facing each other, legs tangled, hands smoothing each other’s backs.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered.
“Me too. This started off as a really bad day.”
“It did?”
He closed his eyes, took a long beat before he answered. “That friend of mine who died recently? Well, it happened on Sunday. The funeral was yesterday. I was working an intense schedule up to then and I wasn’t going to tell my bosses about it, but I needed the day off for the funeral. They told me to take the rest of the week off.”
Astrid opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of a decent thing to say that wasn’t obvious and trite, like I’m sorry or my condolences. Instead, she stroked his hair, watched his face with utter concentration.
Theo looked past her, breathed in heavy sighs.
“Chris and I went to college together, met in a film class. We were gonna collaborate on a movie script. He was riding his motorcycle and a truck hit him, throwing him off an overpass. He didn’t die right away, he was in a coma for a month. So all that time he was here, and he wasn’t here.”
“Oh my god.”
“The funeral was in Rhode Island. There must’ve been two or three hundred people there.” He talked in a low monotone. Astrid massaged the back of his head while he found his words. “After the service, I was at the end of the procession and lost sight of the cars in front of me. I made a few wrong turns and got lost. It took me an extra half hour to reach the cemetery, which was almost funny, like he was fucking with me from the beyond. Practical jokes were his thing. Anyway, his coffin was in a separate room, but I only stayed in there for a few seconds. Chris’s brother was there, talking to the coffin, and I couldn’t interfere with that. I didn’t get my own private moment, but that’s okay. I guess I had enough chances to say goodbye at the hospital.” He closed his eyes again and took in a ragged breath. He opened them and they were calm, brighter blue, a little bit tired. “So will you tell me about this Simon guy now?”
Astrid frowned and stammered, “Uh . . . You’re kidding, right?”
“It’ll take my mind off of my drama.”
“But . . . my drama is nothing compared to what you’ve been through. It’s so minor, commonplace. It’s nowhere near as tragic . . . I mean, nobody died.”
“Fair enough, but somebody is out of your life, right?”
“Yes . . . Obviously Simon is an ex.” She raked her teeth across her lower lip.
“So what happened?”
It wasn’t that the story was too personal or even too painful, not anymore. If anything, she worried it was merely too ordinary. She told him, anyway:
“Simon was doing a PhD in microbiology at Harvard, and I met him when he was in New York on a visit. He took me to the planetarium on our first date. It was instant whatever-you-want-to-call-it, then we did the long distance thing for a year, alternated Boston and New York visits every other weekend. Eventually I decided to move up here to be with him. I was working as a secretary in a dentist’s office back then, so I had no career keeping me in New York, and Boston wasn’t so far that I couldn’t regularly come back to see friends. He found us an apartment, and I worked at Tower Records for a couple of months before getting the job at the lit agency.”
“So what went wrong? He cheated?” Theo twisted his finge
rs through her hair.
“Yup. The entire time we were dating. I found a box with women’s . . . um . . . ‘keepsakes’ in different sizes a couple of months after moving in. I thought maybe he was a sentimental perv, that they belonged to his exes, but there were also all the late nights at the lab . . . Such a cliché, I know. So I followed him one night and caught him making out with some girl in a library. I thought maybe that was a fluke, so . . .” She looked over at her stacks of books, wished one of them would fall over to create a diversion. If only she and Sally had played The Telekinesis Hour instead of The Psychic Hour. “ . . . I didn’t say anything.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, so dumb. But I was in the thick of it, emotionally. And we had a lease together. A week later I followed him again and . . . saw more. This time in the back seat of his car. Different girl, too. This time I said something. When I confronted him, he got weirdly scientific about the whole thing. He actually tried to rationalize that men aren’t monogamous creatures, that their chemistry dictates they should spread their seed.”
Theo’s eyebrows shot upward. “In other words, he wanted to sleep around and have you be cool with it. Why not tell you all that upfront?”
“That’s what I asked him.”
“And?”
“Get this. He said it was a biological fact he thought everyone was aware of. He assumed I was smarter than the average woman and didn’t go in for all that misleading monogamy propaganda.”
“Then why bother to lie and sneak around?”
“Simon believed in privacy, and in keeping part of yourself separate from others to maintain your identity’s integrity,” she said in a low mocking voice. “His words, not mine.”
“What a douchelord. Did you believe all that garbage?”
“Of course not. I moved out the following week.”
“Smart girl. He was right about that, at least.”
Theo rubbed the back of her neck; she’d tell him just about anything to keep his hands on her.
“He was that good at hiding that side of himself, huh?” he asked.
She closed her eyes. “Or maybe I was that good at not seeing it.”
“You’re too trusting.”
“Said the serial killer before claiming his next victim?”
Theo nuzzled her nose. “Come on. I don’t murder anyone before the third date. I’m old fashioned that way.”
“But not as old fashioned as the Old Fashioned.”
Low snickers and their faces came in again. Why had kissing never felt so exhilarating before? It was like walking a high wire, falling off, and floating right back up again. Their heated fingertips pressed into each other’s smooth skin, and there it was again, that intense current passing back and forth between them.
“I wish we had another condom,” he whispered, “so I could redeem myself a little here.”
“We do, but let’s enjoy this until it starts to make us completely crazy.”
“Too late.”
But they held out, building anticipation until there was nothing to do but satiate it. This time with Theo on top and Astrid breathing out her affirmation, pulling him in deeper until he found a rhythm in the friction that brought her over. He worked with a quiet ferocity, breath catching in his throat, let out a muted gasp when he was finished.
On his back, he took a moment to catch his breath. “I know I shouldn’t ask, but—”
“You have nothing to worry about. Consider yourself redeemed.”
They periodically slept, waking up for patches of conversation that evolved into an entirely other language spoken with tongues and hands and limbs entwined, teasing, demanding. Each time an itch that could be scratched but quieted for only so long.
It was dawn, and Astrid kept her eyes half-closed against the silver light, tracing her finger across the smooth arc of Theo’s ear, memorizing every curve and bump.
“Do you think you’ll ever make your movie?”
“I don’t know . . . I’d like to,” he said.
“What’s standing in the way?”
“Money, time, the usual culprits . . . you need a cast, locations, a solid script—and now I need a new writing partner. But apart from that . . .” He let out a dry laugh.
“Still, I bet you can see the whole movie play out in your head. I bet it’s all there.”
“It is. But it feels too big to tackle. Every time I start thinking about it . . . I just can’t right now.”
She smoothed his hair back and kissed the furrowed groove between his eyebrows. He closed his eyes, his breath slow and even. They breathed in sync and drifted off to sleep again.
After what felt like hours, she woke up, checked the clock, and hurriedly began getting dressed.
“What’s going on?” he asked through a yawn.
“I’m going to miss my bus.”
He found his pants in a crumpled pile of discarded clothing. “What time does it leave?”
“Noon.”
He checked his watch. “I don’t think you need to rush. It’s barely seven.”
She stopped short of putting her top on and sat down on the mattress. “Are you kidding? I must’ve mixed up the hour and second hands on the clock. What is wrong with me?” She flopped back on the bed and he tickled her exposed neck.
“That’s a pretty goofy thing to do, Miss O’Malley. Clearly, somebody wasn’t paying attention in kindergarten. If it makes you feel any better, I was out sick the day they taught us how to tie our shoes. I still suck at it.”
“I’m such a dope.”
“So does this mean we can get back in bed?”
“Oh, yeah.”
They got under the covers, partially clothed, just as a rainstorm began outside. Astrid hid her face against Theo’s chest, inhaling the last traces of his cologne, a lone lemon left in an abandoned log cabin. She curled up against him, sandwiched a knee between his legs, and sighed as his arms closed firmly around her. Her first impression had been spot-on: he did give good hugs.
Astrid slept as if diving under water: deeply but coming up for air often, waking every half hour to check the clock. Each time, she stretched her neck, watched the flicker of Theo’s closed eyelids, and curled back into position. Throughout her disjointed slumber, the rain pounded against the window with ferocity, water hitting glass like hailstones, filling the room with its rush and rattle, an alarming lullaby.
Eventually, she couldn’t put off getting out of bed any longer. She threw some clothes and toiletries into a small bag while he continued to sleep, brushed her teeth, put on a little make-up, and combed her hair. When she was nearly ready, she kneeled on the mattress and gave him a gentle shake.
Theo opened one eye and grabbed her by the wrists to pull her back down.
“I can’t. I have to get to South Station in the next hour and I still need to finish packing. But I’ll only be gone for the weekend.”
“Can I call you when you get back?”
“Yeah, let me write down my number.”
She took the first things that were at hand, an envelope from a piece of junk mail and a vial of liquid eyeliner. She painted her number in fast strokes, waving the envelope until the liner dried.
At the door, she wanted to tell him he was right: the day had been unexpectedly awesome. But she didn’t.
They shared an extended kiss on the threshold. Every time they paused, she thought he’d pull away, but he only took another breath and kept kissing her. She didn’t want to, but she eventually loosened her arms and stepped back.
They smiled and held hands until he was too far across the threshold and had to let go. She watched him descend the first flight of stairs. When he got to the bottom, he looked up and gave a little wave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
..................
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1999
I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO do about Oliver. Maybe I should’ve called him before the radio show, but I didn’t. And as the week goes on, I pick up the p
hone many times, but don’t follow through with his number. At Curio City, I steal hopeful glances through the front window, wondering if he’ll turn up again, but he never does.
The ambivalent days passed and my confused resolve holds out until the night before Hell.
If nothing else, I need to hear his voice.
“Oliver? It’s Astrid.”
“Ah, the prodigal amnesiac returns.”
I brush off a twinge of resentment at the comment. Should I open with small talk? Yeah, as if casual conversation is ever possible between us.
“I have another lead on Theo,” I say.
“Mazel tov?”
“You sound agitated.”
“Do I?”
He definitely does. “Are you upset with me?”
“What’s this new lead?” Now he sounds bored.
I tell him about the radio show and the upcoming party at ManRay.
“Don’t go,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
“Is it because you think I won’t find him there? Or because you’re worried I will?”
“Because I don’t want to be the cleanup crew.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I always take your calls, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do that.”
“Oliver, I—”
He hangs up on me. Ouch.
As I return the phone to its cradle, I notice the blinking red light of the answering machine. One unheard message.
BEEP!
“Hi, this is Erin Collins for Astrid O’Malley. Thanks for your letter and the kind words about my cookbook. I’m glad you’re enjoying the recipes. As for Theo . . . I wish I could be of more help here, but . . . I have no idea who he is. I’m an only child, so . . . no brother, no half-brother. I don’t even know anybody named Theo. I’m not sure what kind of story you were told, but I did want to clear that up. Hope that helps and thanks again.”
So . . .
A sick feeling, an oozing, like my insides are being coated in slime. Just as I’m trusting my mind, my memory, and finding balance in the waking world, the floor tilts and I slip sideways.
Asleep From Day Page 25
