by Jill Kargman
“So you have this hot date tonight?” Kiki asked, brow raised in mischievous sexpot glee.
When she reminded me, I got that nervous energy of an impending date with a guaranteed hookup. But I also had a queasy stomach, which made think that deep down, maybe I didn’t want to go.
As we plopped at a small café on Seventy-third Street with our red cheeks and flyaway hair, I knew I needed some sexual advice from sexpert Kiki. I felt like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a clueless Jennifer Jason Leigh learning how to fellate a carrot from Phoebe Cates.
“Kiki, do I . . . have to, like . . . bang John tonight?”
“No, of course not. Why?”
“It’s getting weird to just kiss on street corners. I just feel this pressure like I haven’t been ‘out there’ since the days of bases. I just feel so juvenile—what am I going to do, give this grown man a hand job?”
“Yeah. I think pulling log would be pretty weird at his age. You can’t be yanking chain on a fifty-year-old.”
“See? That’s why I’m freaked out! He’s forty-seven, by the way.”
“Same thing. But I don’t think you have to sleep together.”
“You really don’t?”
“Well, I always do, but I’m a big slut. You’re . . . pure. Just kiss, you know, take it from there, play it by ear.”
“Playing it by ear is what gets people pregnant and STD infested. I want to think about this. I have smooched the guy already, and isn’t this what people do? I mean, they have sex! You do.”
“That’s me, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Just tell him you want to take it slow.”
“Ugh, that is so cheesy. I’ll sound like a virgin in high school or a Bible beater who needs to be held. It’s not like I have sex on such a high pedestal; I just don’t know if I’m ready. I’m still wounded. Gosh, I sound so pathetic. The fact is, maybe I should get laid.”
“Holly, you can’t plan these things. Just surrender to the flow. You’re so smart, you know yourself, feel it out. And don’t analyze it, trust your instincts.”
Kiki walked me home, kissed me good-bye, and wished me luck. It was strange being in my apartment alone. I was so accustomed to the sound track of Miles’s clomping about and I missed the cacophony of his little feet and the sight of his light-up sneakers coming down the hall. To combat the loneliness, I blared Radiohead loud enough to overpower the hair dryer and I tried on multiple outfits. I felt a little more revved up post-music and makeup, but in the cab over to John’s house, I started to think about the dangerous fantasy feud: Tim versus John. If I married John, I guess Sherry Von would be right: John’s not “as good” as Tim. People would see us in the street holding hands and think I’d married a geriatric. But John was more creative and wasn’t Krazy Glued to the NFL. Wait, what was I doing?! I wasn’t going to marry John! Slow down, Holly.
Kiki was right: It was comparing apples and oranges. Tim was always threatened that I had such a fixation on older dudes. He had half joked that if I ever left him for someone else, it would be for an older guy, not a young buck, thanks to my outspoken obsessions over Jeremy Irons and Al Pacino. (And, P.S., I didn’t have some weird Daddy complex, I just found the wisdom of age sexy, and the hot young studs were de facto himbos and dum-dums. Or had roachy apartments.)
As I arrived at the beautiful mansion that housed John’s apartment-slash-studio, I started to get really paranoid. Being in his home felt suddenly intimate; the bed would be steps away. But walking up the stairs, I was calmed by the ambrosia of cooking smells and classical music. John leaned over the railing.
“Up here!”
“Hi! This is such a cool building!”
I reached him and we hugged, him clutching a wooden spoon covered in red sauce. John’s apartment had huge twenty-foot ceilings and ornate original molding, and he explained that it was originally the Pulitzer family mansion, which had since been divvied up into many apartments. The Bach harpsichord floated through the dimly lit, loftlike space, as if it was a stage set. As sauce simmered on the stove, filling the air with herbs, we sat on stools by the big stainless island nearby.
“Do you like pasta puttanesca?”
“Yes. I love all Italian food. I could probably eat human flesh if it had marinara on it.”
“That’s appetizing,” he said, sarcastically. “Spicy or no . . .”
Hello? I was joking. I ain’t Hannibal Talbott.
“Spicy’s fine.”
The conversation was a bit stilted because we both knew we were both sort of going through the motions until we would lock lips once more. But I needed to lay the emotional groundwork to get myself in the mood.
We moved the earthenware bowls of arugula and pappardelle to his Shaker table and ate his extremely tasty concoctions with a great red wine. He tried to verbally distill the libation for me (“oaky yet bold”), but it was making beds in a burning house: I don’t know wines at all. I know I liked it, but I have zero tolerance and get hammered off a glass, so I stopped at that to stay sharp. We decided to save dessert (fallen chocolate cake) for later since we were so full, and I got the tour of the apartment, a cavernous two-bedroom with a full skylit studio for his paintings, where two more half-finished nudes sat on easels. His constant attention made me feel special, and his hand rested on the small of my back as he led me through each part of the house. I drank in the eclectic décor and tried to glean details of his life.
He seemed like kind of a loner—no photos of pals from school, no invitations leaning against the mirror, just books and books. And books. Every CD was classical or opera, which seemed hot in theory even if it was so not me. Although Bach can be great mood music. Who knew?
We meandered into the bedroom and I looked out the window at his view of the twinkling lights of the town house rooftops. I knew he’d soon be coming up from behind me to break the hour of no making out. I saw his reflection getting bigger in the window and soon enough he was wrapping his arms around my waist. He kissed the back of my neck, sending chills down my vertebrae, and my cashmere sweater against my stomach felt soft and tight through his strong grip. He turned me around and kissed me, the taste of wine mingling with the smell of his showered hair. We stumbled like a four-legged blind animal to the bed, and tumbled on the downy comforter, kissing madly. He pulled my shirt over my head, grabbed my chest feverishly, and freed me of my bra. This took the turn-on factor up a notch, but also made the border of my skirt and tights feel vulnerable as the next point of entry, and I knew at that moment, despite breathy sighs and flushed necks, that I did not want to have sex.
We messed around for another fifteen minutes as the stereo’s harpsichord swelled sweetly. My mind was going a mile a minute. I do think physical intimacy can breed connection, get rid of inhibitions, and help two people feel more comfortable, but I somehow couldn’t go the distance. What was my problem? And as he began to fumble with my skirt button, I interrupted.
“John, I—”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, I just—can we maybe not . . . go all . . . the way.”
The second I said it out loud I was horrified. I sounded like an effing ninth grader. “I mean—I like you,” I continued. “I just feel . . . not . . . ready. Yet.”
“Oh, okay. Sure.”
Crickets.
“Do you want to get some dessert or something?” he asked.
“Um, okay.”
We walked like quiet mice back into the kitchen and I threw on my sweater sans bra. I followed him to the cake and put my arm around him as a signal that, hey, the party’s not over because I won’t hop in the sack. But he just continued serving the cake.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks! This looks great, John.” I took a large bite. “YUM! Move over, Betty Crocker, this is so amazing!”
“Thanks.” I could tell my compliments to his baking skills were not going to make up for the fact that I had just put the brakes on our body lock.
“Listen, Jo
hn, I am sorry if this is strange. I really like you and, trust me, I . . . want to, you know, be with you and everything, I just want to feel ready. I hope you—”
“Sure, that’s fine. I want you to feel ready.”
“Great. Thank you so much. I’m so sorry. I just . . . well, frankly it’s been a while, and I want to feel secure.”
“Fine, that’s fine, of course.”
“ ’kay.”
“Do you want to watch a movie or something?”
“Sure ...”
We went back into his room and flipped through the channels until we found Braveheart, which I convinced him to watch, despite the punchline status of Mel in recent years. Extensions and war paint, gotta love it; it always made me think that whatever I was enduring, my life’s dramas were small potatoes in agonizing comparison to prima nocta rapes and bloody battlefields. We watched the whole thing with some conversation throughout. I was just about to fall asleep (when Robert the Bruce was reaming his big-nosed diseased dad for betraying William Wallace) when John tapped me gently.
“Shall I put you in a taxi? Or—you’re welcome to stay here....”
I was frankly dreading going out in the cold, but I knew that a morning together could be bizarre, so I motivated myself to cab it home. Bra in bag, I walked to the door and he kissed me good-bye as his hands went up the back of my sweater. I got a jolt of lust and almost said, Screw it, let’s go back inside, but instead I smiled, waved adios, and went downstairs.
When I got home, I realized that he hadn’t put me in a cab. Tim would have always put me in a cab. You don’t send a girl out into the night like that! There are street toughs! Gang rapists who travel in packs with switchblades and screwdrivers! Okay, maybe not on the Upper East Side, but still.
Also: Why the hell did I apologize for not sleeping with him? What, was I supposed to be on my back for some pasta puttanesca? Didn’t pasta puttanesca mean whore’s pasta? I knew puta was “whore” in Spanish. He totally made me feel like I had to say sorry for not putting my ankles in two zip codes and doing him. I don’t need to shag him rotten; he’s a STRANGER. Maybe we are not built to love so many men, to have more than one serious bond where there is sexual intimacy. I started to feel like with each broken relationship, a little piece of me was taken, a slice of innocence. And now I was hardened, with pieces missing, and terrified of losing yet another chunk. Mine was only the second or third generation (minus the “bad girls” and whores and stuff ) that had several or more sexual partners, and I wondered whether I was made to handle that.
I fell asleep, not waking until noon. I went out to the very coffee bar in which we had met, grabbed a vat of espresso, and meandered home to find a voice mail from John.
He said he had a lot of fun and that he wanted to see me again soon: “My brother has a farm in Connecticut. You mentioned that Miles will be with his dad this Saturday night, and if you’re free, maybe we could go up there and hang out, relax. Let me know. . . . Bye.” Click.
Hearing his voice so soon after made me feel a little less alone and somewhat comforted. I was such an impatient person that I wanted to feel all the togetherness and sparks and relaxed love that I’d had in my marriage so quickly. But I guess when you’re older, things aren’t as dramatic as they once seemed; people have to slowly get to know each other, right? And I was free that weekend. Kiki had mentioned a benefit for some hospital at South Street Seaport that sounded mildly fun, but maybe a night away with John could be better.
32
“My husband said he needed more space. So I locked him outside.”
—Roseanne Barr
Thanksgiving morning was so frigid, I wanted desperately to bail on Kiki’s brunch on the West Side. But she called not only to wake me up, but also again twenty minutes later to confirm that I was shower-bound. I phoned Miles on my cell, which I’d lent him for the weekend (it felt too weird buying a six-year-old his own cell, even though half his class had them).
“Happy Turkey Day, sweetie,” I said, trying to stay strong and squash to the back of my brain all impulses to cry. It was like trying to hold down vomit.
“I love you, Mommy. Happy turkey. Are you making turkey for yourself?”
“No, honey, I’m going out with Aunt Kiki. We’ll be thinking of you. I can’t wait to see you Sunday morning!”
I got ready, throwing on a cozy soft sweater dress and boots, shoved a brush through my hair, and made my way to the West Side on foot since I knew it would be a total zoo. When I got to the gorgeous building on the park, I prayed Kiki would be there, and luckily hers was the first face I saw when I walked into the warm, bustling apartment.
The second belonged to Elliot Smith.
“Holland! Hi, nice to see you,” he said, kissing me hello.
“You, too! Ugh, I’m frozen solid.”
“Here. I have a mug of scalding cider here with your name on it.”
He handed it to me with a warm smile and I just stared right into his mammoth green eyes, wondering again if they were color contact lenses.
“It’s so funny your name is Elliot Smith. I loved his music—”
“It’s the best. Sharing a name with a celebrity can have drawbacks, but one benefit is that I am un-Google-able—all the pages are his music fan sites.”
“Ahhh, interesting. Well, at least you share a name with a genius, and not, say, Michael Bolton,”
“Right, like in Office Space—” he added.
One of my favorite movies. “Okay, I just watched that again—so brilliant. But being in the art world, you probably never slaved away like a faceless drone in some sad cubicle, right?”
He shrugged. “You’d be surprised.”
“Holl! C’mere, you look hot!” Kiki said, looking me over. “Talk about MILF! Foxy mama!”
“Oh, thanks.” I looked bashfully at Elliot.
“Are you okay?” Kiki asked, sipping her hot spiced wine. “You’re all red!”
I put my hands on my cheeks, “No, I’m okay. Just wind-whipped a little.”
“Let’s go get some food,” said Elliot. “The spread is amazing.”
He led me into a huge dining room overlooking the park, and a humongous Blue’s Clues dog bumped his nose on the giant window. The room was packed with various art folk, very downtown leggy wives of collectors, an editor from Artforum, a Serbian sculptor Lyle repped, and some big-fish hedge fund collectors I recognized from the circuit.
Lyle came running over and gave me a kiss.
“Holly, thanks so much for coming,” he said, while rubbing Kiki’s back tenderly. “Otherwise, I knew this one would never show.”
“My pleasure, thank you so much for having me. Your apartment is amazing.”
“Thanks. Enjoy, please make yourself at home. . . .”
Lyle took Kiki’s hand, and she followed him through the crowd to another room, and then I spied them disappearing through a door into what I guessed was a bedroom. So my supposed wingman was over ’n’ out, headed for some holiday hay rolls. Roger that.
Thank goodness for Elliot, who became my new wingman. We stuffed ourselves on a tower of bagels, smoked whitefish salad, turkey, mashed yams, and finally pumpkin pie while watching every float, marching band, and Shania.
Overheard background conversation involved the painter Lisa Yuskavage, where people were staying for the Basel art fair in Miami, and the runs the market had taken in subprime mortgages.
“I feel like the hedge fund world fully feeds the art world right now. This place is hopping with these guys,” I said, craning my neck to see a new hotshot wunderkind who had opened his own shop at thirty-one and supposedly already had a billion under management.
“Yeah, they’re definitely linked; that’s for sure,” Elliot attested. “Art is a big statement when you walk into these guys’ offices.”
“It’s so funny how you confirmed that these guys want the hot name-brand painters. If it’s not recognizable, it’s not worth it. The same way their wives want all the
right labels from the big fashion houses.”
“Pretty much.”
“They want their pieces to be recognizable, right? It’s not worth it unless everyone knows what it is.”
Elliot smiled. “You got it.”
“Like Shania just sang, that don’t impress me much.”
“What does impress you, then?” He smiled, looking at me.
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know. Humor. Honesty. Generally not being a dick. I used to think nice guys were so boring and I was drawn more to the life-of-the-party types. My friend Jeannie and I used to say “Easy Math: Nice+a MetroCard = a Seat on the Subway. I.e., Nice counts for nothing.” I shook my head at my own stupidity. “But now I’ve grown up a bit and realize there’s something to be said for simple Sesame Street values.”
“I hear you.”
He grinned and looked out the window, coincidentally at a Cookie Monster balloon, as two prepster guys moved next to us.
“So, you traveling a lot these days?” asked one to the other.
“Yeah, well, it’s all about the BRICs right now; you know how it goes.”
I leaned into Elliot conspiratorially. “That means Brazil, Russia, India, and China,” I told him. Emerging markets. Tim spent a lot of time flying to the BRICs, though in retrospect, I couldn’t be sure. Though maybe he was there to visit BRIC brothels, getting special massages.
“Hey,” said Elliot, smiling. “You do know your stuff.”
“Well, after a decade married to a hedge funder, I am down with the lingo.”
“Why’d you split up?” he asked gently.
“Our divorce papers say irreconcilable differences. That difference was a catalog model in a pencil skirt.” Darn! My stupid mouth. Bitter much? Uh-oh, I hoped this poor guy wasn’t going to be bored to tears by my baggage. “How about you?”
“Yeah, my ex-wife and I just kind of woke up one day and realized we were incompatible. I was a Sagittarius and she was a cheating bitch.”
I spat out my cider, guffawing. He was really funny.
