The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes

by Linda Alvarez

  There were no roses in January, but they’d come again, soon enough. She’d be waiting for them. In the meantime, it was enough to close her eyes, feel the mud under her toes, and remember Daniel. The way he laughed, bright and full. The way he would return to a comment from a conversation hours past. The way he had touched her sometimes, so lightly, as if she were a bird. The scent of him, dark and rich, like coffee in a garden, after rain.

  The Gift

  Lewis DeSimone

  Jesse would have burned the dinner if I hadn’t been there to save it.

  “What are you doing?!” I cried, opening the oven door and pulling out the rack. He had set the temperature to 450ºF; I quickly turned it down and left the door open for a while to cool it off. Fortunately, the lasagne had been inside for only a few minutes, but already it was bubbling around the edges and some of the cheese on top had started to brown, long before the rest of the dish was even warm.

  “You have to handle these things delicately,” I said. “The lasagne will be done when it’s done.” The oven thermometer now read 375ºF, so I slid the rack gently back in and closed the door.

  “You’re just anxious,” Jesse said. He was pulling silverware out of the drawer – the good stuff, the set he’d inherited from his mother. Clutching yellow linen napkins in his other hand, he stepped around the counter and began to set the table.

  “I am not anxious,” I told him. I was still fingering the potholder, looking for a safe place to put it among the clutter.

  It was the kitchen, with its Mary Tyler Moore window, that had sold me on the apartment. Jesse had been more partial to the view of the Charles River from the living room. When I was a kid, I’d fantasized about living in Minneapolis, imagining that all its apartments had those shutters over the kitchen counter, shutters I would throw open to converse with my guests as I whipped up dinner. But this was not Minneapolis, and reality was not a sitcom. Since moving in, we’d had surprisingly few dinner parties. Kim was our first guest in months.

  “I just want everything to be perfect tonight,” I said. “I want her to feel comfortable.”

  “Nick, she’ll be comfortable,” Jesse said. “We don’t need to impress her.” He adjusted the centrepiece, an opalescent blue ceramic vase with daffodils spilling out of it. I’d chosen daffodils because of their height and simplicity – I didn’t want some huge, overdone bouquet blocking our view of one another over dinner, obstructing conversation.

  I gazed through the cloudy window of the oven at the glass casserole dish, the layers of pasta, sauce and cheese. I always made my lasagne just as my mother had taught me, with loads of ground beef and even ground veal on special occasions. But not tonight. In the layer where the meat should have been, there was a thick spread of spinach in deference to Kim’s vegetarianism. To compensate, I’d had a hamburger for lunch. I thanked God she wasn’t vegan.

  Jesse’s arms suddenly encircled me, his head burrowing into my shoulder. “It’s going to be a beautiful evening,” he whispered. “I promise.”

  Our image reflected hazily in the glass, his brown head nuzzling against my neck, a complement to the thinning blonde hair that spilled over my own brow. Within a few years, most couples we knew became clones of each other – sharing their clothes and hairstyles so that sometimes you could hardly tell them apart. Perhaps with us the pieces had just fit together better from the start, no need to shave off an edge here and there to squeeze the puzzle into place.

  “Well, she’s your friend,” I said, closing my eyes. It was better that way, of course. I couldn’t have gone through with it with someone I knew too well.

  “Are the wine glasses on the table?” I asked.

  “Knew I forgot something,” he said, his breath rippling my shirt. But he didn’t move until the doorbell rang a few seconds later.

  I glanced up at the clock above the oven. “Well, she’s prompt,” I remarked.

  “Timing is everything,” Jesse said with a smile, pulling away and heading for the door. “Especially tonight.”

  I darted across the room to turn down the Schubert, then busied myself pulling wine glasses out of the cupboard. I was lighting the candles on the table when I heard the voices in the foyer. There were no cries of welcome, just murmured hellos, and Jesse followed Kim into the room. She held a bottle of white wine in front of her and laid it gently into my hands as she leaned in to kiss my cheek.

  “Oh, it’s chilled,” I said, my fingers tingling.

  She laughed and drew away quickly. “Sorry. I should have warned you.”

  “I should have known you wouldn’t show up with a bottle of warm Chardonnay,” I said with a smile.

  She had trimmed her hair into a neat bob that drew attention to her face – the slightly upturned nose and high cheekbones. I’d always thought of Kim as pretty, but tonight she looked quite beautiful. Her eyes were bright blue, like Jesse’s.

  “Can I help with anything?” Kim asked as I led the way into the kitchen.

  Jesse slid past her to pull a serving bowl from the cupboard. “You’re doing quite enough already,” he said.

  Kim blushed, a healthy pink in her cheeks. She didn’t look like the other vegetarians I knew – pasty, unnaturally thin. Kim had an athlete’s body – slender but strong. It showed in the way her feet held the ground, the subtle biceps that appeared when she bent her arm to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. She worked out regularly, she ate right, she didn’t smoke. She was a catch. It was a wonder some man hadn’t swooped her up by now.

  She had been one of Jesse’s closest friends in college. They’d even dated briefly. And later, she was one of the first people he came out to. After school they had gone their separate ways, Kim bopping around the country in search of herself. It was pure coincidence that she was here at all. She’d come back to town a few years ago, for graduate school, and we’d bumped into her in line at the movies. If it hadn’t been for Woody Allen, this night might never have happened. We might have been standing here with someone else right now, someone neither of us knew very well at all.

  While I opened the wine, Jesse made the salad. Salads he could handle – there was nothing to burn.

  “So how’s school?” he asked, slicing into a tomato. The seeds spilled on to the cutting board, and he brushed it all into the bowl before moving on to the cucumber.

  “It’s great,” Kim said. “As soon as this class is done, I’ll be free to work full-time on the dissertation.”

  I handed her a glass of Chardonnay. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

  Jesse turned and took the other glass. “To Kim’s dissertation. And other projects.”

  “To Kim,” I said, smiling.

  Our glasses clinked together, a perfect little triangle.

  I checked the lasagne, which still had a while to go. We settled down at the table to start on the salad first. It was past seven, but watery gold sunlight was still falling through the window.

  “So what’s your dissertation about again?” I asked.

  “Kate Chopin,” she said. “She’s not terribly well known these days, unless you’re an English major.”

  “Any relation to Frédéric?”

  “Not that I know of. But it might be interesting – finding parallels between the writing and the music.”

  Jesse laughed. “Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said, “something we could both read.” He leaned towards Kim. “In case you haven’t noticed – all the books in this house are mine, and all the CDs are Nick’s.”

  “That’s not strictly true,” I argued.

  “I stand corrected,” said Jesse, fork waving in mid-air like a baton. “All the books about music are Nick’s.”

  Kim laughed. “I’d say you guys complement each other very nicely,” she said. She looked at us both in turn. “An old friend of mine used to say, differences are gifts; they give us a chance to expand our horizons.’”

  “See, sweetie?” Jesse said, patting my hand. “Remember that the next time I
leave the cap off the toothpaste.”

  Kim caught the gesture and smiled. “Seven years?” she asked. “And no itch yet?” She laughed again, a mischievous, throaty laugh.

  “Well,” I said, “we’re not saints. It’s all a question of how often you scratch.”

  “But you’re great together. You know that, right?” There was a depth to her eyes, and I realized suddenly that this wasn’t just about Jesse and me. She had a stake in it, too. She needed us to be stable. She needed to know she could rely on us.

  “Of course,” I replied, squeezing Jesse’s hand. “We’re very lucky.”

  “Is that all there is to it?” she asked, pushing a carrot slice around on her plate. “Luck?”

  “It plays a bigger role than you’d think,” I confessed. “It’s not as if I deserve this guy, you know.”

  Head still bowed over his plate, Jesse looked up at me – through the chestnut hair that grazed his forehead. I called it his “come hither” look, but I’d never told him that.

  “It’s not a question of deserving,” he said softly. “Love comes when you’re ready for it.” He was talking to Kim, but still gazing at me.

  “Well,” Kim said through a self-conscious laugh, “then I guess I’m still not ready.”

  “You are,” Jesse replied, breaking the connection at last and turning to face her. “But maybe he’s not.”

  “Who?”

  “The man you’re destined to be with.”

  Her laughter morphed into a nervous giggle. “Ooh, destiny. That’s a little scary. So far I’ve just been destined for jerks.”

  “That’s not destiny,” I told her. “Most men are jerks.”

  “Well, I’ve met them all,” she said. She took a gulp of wine, a period on the remark. “I did get close once or twice – or so I thought. The grand passion that fizzles when reality sets in.”

  “Preaching to the choir,” I said, raising a hand to the sky.

  She went on, in a sort of reverie now. “It’s amazing how many times you have to learn the same lesson. I keep thinking it’s going to be different this time: This guy means it. This one can open his heart as easily as his pants.” She laughed at her own joke and took another sip. “But even when they do . . . they seem to hate it, you know? It’s like their nerves are suddenly stripped of their protective coating. They love the feeling at first, but then it becomes too much and they can’t stand it. They have to close up again – zip their hearts back up and leave.” She smiled delicately, mysteriously. “Men can do that,” she whispered. “How do they do that?”

  “Some of them feel like they have to,” Jesse said. “To survive.”

  “It takes courage,” I added, “to be vulnerable. You know that.”

  “Were you afraid?” Kim asked, eyes wide.

  “Terrified,” I said.

  Jesse gripped my hand again – warm, one finger wrapped around my knuckle. “It takes work,” he said. “You push through the fear. Again and again.”

  “And if you’re lucky,” I said, “you find someone who’s willing to do that with you.”

  “There’s that luck again,” she said, grimacing facetiously.

  “Destiny,” Jesse said. “You have to have faith that it will happen.”

  She arched her eyebrows. I saw in her eyes that Jesse was speaking a foreign language.

  “It’s luck,” I told her. Somehow, luck seemed more reassuring. Luck wasn’t anyone’s fault.

  The timer rang and Jesse started to rise.

  “No, no, no,” I said, tossing my napkin on to the table. “I’ll take care of it. You entertain our guest. You’re the charming one.”

  The lasagne was perfect, golden in the middle, brown and slightly crunchy around the edges. I carved into it with the spatula and pulled out three large squares. When I returned with a steaming plate in each hand, Jesse and Kim were laughing together. They looked remarkably comfortable, as if this were any other evening. As if they were still in college, the whole world just a figment of the future.

  “I hope it’s not me,” I said, settling Kim’s plate before her.

  “No,” she said, “don’t worry. I was just telling Jesse about one of my students. He was under the impression that Virginia Woolf had written Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

  “And how did you disabuse him of that notion?” I asked, turning Jesse’s plate as I laid it down so that the garlic bread was on the left, where he liked it.

  “Very delicately,” she said. “You have to be careful with their precious little eighteen-year-old egos.”

  I went back for my own plate and fetched the bowl of freshly grated Parmesan. “Will you be happy to be done with teaching for a while,” I asked, taking my place again, “or do you think you’ll miss it?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll miss it,” she said, slicing into the lasagne. A burst of steam escaped, and she put her fork down to wait for it to cool. “But I’ll be back in the classroom eventually. Shaping those little minds.”

  “What about the really little minds?” I asked. “You won’t miss that?”

  She lifted her glass and looked into it contemplatively. “I’ve never felt called to raise children,” she said. “This isn’t about that.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I need to hear it. Again.”

  “That’s understandable.” She drained her glass and reached for the bottle.

  Jesse, in mid-crunch on his garlic bread, suddenly perked up. “I, on the other hand, am a completely different story. My biological clock has been ticking since I was six.”

  “Six?”

  “Oh you should have seen me, stealing my sister’s baby dolls away. Whenever she wasn’t looking, I’d kidnap one of them and start sprucing up its outfit.”

  Kim laughed and turned to me – wide-eyed and curious, like Oprah.

  “I was more into Barbies myself,” I admitted. “I liked glamour, not diapers.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Jesse said with a wink.

  Kim sprinkled cheese over her lasagne, shaking the spoon gently to get an even layer.

  Jesse was right: I was anxious. I tend to blurt things out when I’m anxious. “I get tested every three months,” I said to break the silence, “like clockwork.”

  Kim smiled and bowed her head. “I know, Nick,” she replied. “Jesse told me.”

  “I just wanted to make sure you knew,” I said. “Clean bill of health.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “We’ve already had this conversation, honey. We’ve covered all the bases.” He had such a firm jaw, almost square, with a delicate cleft that was nearly impossible to shave properly.

  I nodded. They had had the conversation already. She’d asked all her questions; Jesse had asked all of ours. I should have been satisfied with that. But when Kim had called yesterday, telling us it was time, I suddenly regretted being only a vicarious part of the discussion. I wasn’t vicarious tonight, and I wasn’t going to be vicarious later on, either.

  I put my fork down and took a deep breath. I’d learned that much. I’d learned how to shut off the racing of my mind. But at times like this, it seemed like a full-time job. I refilled everyone’s glass as an excuse to drain my own.

  I fetched another bottle from the sideboard and poured. The Pinot felt smoother on my tongue than the tart Chardonnay. It went down more easily.

  “I just want the experience,” Kim said at last, her features softened by the third glass of wine. “And time’s slipping by. I’ll be thirty-five in June, you know. I just want to know what it’s like. Is that crazy?”

  “No,” Jesse said. “That makes total sense. Hell, if I could do it, I would. I’d love that experience.”

  I laughed. “Honey, if you could do it, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  Kim still had a crush on Jesse – that much was obvious. The way she looked at him now, the way her eyes glowed when she turned from me to him didn’t help my anxiety at all. It was as if there was an understanding between t
hem, an agreement that I hadn’t signed. I took a deep breath and told myself that I was not the third wheel this time.

  As if reading my discomfort, Jesse looked up from his plate and smiled at me, his eyes bright and hopeful. I unfolded my leg beneath the table and touched his foot with my own. His smile broadened.

  “It’s time for dessert,” he said, rising from the table. He gathered the plates into a pile, Kim deftly scooping in one last bite before it vanished from in front of her.

  I sat back in my chair. I hadn’t eaten much. Even though my stomach was churning with hunger, I hadn’t been able to get down more than a few bites. I took another sip of wine. My insides would be all liquid before long.

  Jesse returned in a moment and settled dessert plates in front of us – our casual set, the ones with lithe dancers drawn on them in silhouette, striking various ballet poses. Each plate bore an eclair from our favourite neighbourhood bakery, huge chocolate-drenched pastries that ordinarily made my mouth water. I took another breath to avoid throwing up.

  He unscrewed a bottle of orange muscat and began pouring it into liqueur glasses. I picked up mine as soon as he’d lifted the bottle away, but he gently slapped my hand. “Not yet,” he said. “We have to toast.”

  I dutifully put the glass down. Kim was already digging into her eclair, the cream oozing on to her plate, obscuring the extended leg of a ballerina in arabesque.

  “To the gift of love,” Jesse said, his glass in mid-air. Kim and I lifted ours towards him and clinked.

  I’ve always hated double entendre.

  I sat. I drank. I waited. The éclair sweated, untouched, before me.

  “Well,” said Jesse at last, wiping a drop of cream from his lip with a napkin, “now what?”

  I stared into my glass – through it, to a world painted orange.

  Kim giggled and settled her fork on to the empty plate. “You boys are so coy,” she said. “Can’t we just say it, for heaven’s sake? We all know why we’re here. It’s the most natural thing in the world.”