“Thanks. The temperature must have dropped a hundred degrees since this morning.” The car smelled like Dentyne and Polo Sport.
“Your teeth are chattering, Nikki O’Neill, no relation to Tip.”
“Maybe.” Nikki smiled through her quivering lips, thinking about how much Nate would hate Jack. He’d call him corporate scum.
During the three and a half miles between the Murphy Group and Capitol Hill, they talked about Marion Barry’s failure to fix potholes and whether he could beat his drug habit. Nikki wanted to keep driving and listen to Jack talk and laugh. He had a great laugh, spontaneous and with lots of bass.
He adjusted his collar — crisp, white, and expensive, in contrast to the yellowed short-sleeved shirt Nate wore with his one tie when he took her out for lunch last week. She hated herself for hurrying both of them out of the building so she wouldn’t have to introduce him around.
“You hungry?” Jack looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
Nikki felt her cheeks tingle. Had he just asked her to dinner? “Yeah, a little.”
“Take me to your favorite restaurant.” He smiled. “It’s the least I can do for working you so hard.”
“Okay, turn left here.” She directed him to a Cuban place she loved, a dive that would be empty at this hour. She glanced at his wedding ring, knowing he would appreciate her discretion, and surprised at how intuitively the etiquette for dining with a married man came to her.
“Got any Scotch?” he asked the pretty waitress, who spoke very little English.
Scotch? Ick. Nikki suddenly wanted to be home cuddled up with Nate under her down comforter, waiting for the water to boil for their Top Ramen, or better yet, sitting at the kitchen table in her sweats, keeping Georgia company while she tested a new recipe from the Post.
Jack looked at the waitress, who seemed confused, and then at Nikki. “Right, right. This is a Mexican restaurant. Give me a margarita, por favor.”
Beam me up, Scotty. “I’ll have a mojito,” she said, a bit too politely. When the waitress left, she whispered, “This is a Cuban restaurant.”
He laughed with his whole body, shrugging his shoulders and throwing his head back. “God, I’m a dope sometimes. Did I embarrass you?”
“Totally.” She loved that he didn’t care that the joke was on him. No wonder he was so masterful at charming clients. How could she not like him?
Nikki took charge of the ordering, and the food arrived swiftly.
“Oh, my God.” He closed his eyes and sucked on a plantain. “This is damn good. Are these fried bananas?”
“Plantains.” She dipped one in the sour cream and fed him.
He took a sip of his second margarita. “So, a looker like you must have a boyfriend.”
A looker? Nikki’s dad used that term. “Let’s just have fun tonight,” she said. How Helen Gurley Brown of her to take control of the evening, to brush their respective romantic entanglements to the side.
He persisted. “Still got your college boyfriend?”
Nikki recoiled, as if he had asked, “Still sleep with your retainer?” She glanced around for the waitress and crossed her legs, kicking him lightly by accident.
He smiled. “Mysterious, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m very mysterious.” She winked. Where was this coming from?
They didn’t talk about the office gossip she’d been collecting at happy hours, like the pending merger or Jack’s partners’ campaign to force him out. Instead, Jack told her about his first job, selling radio time for a big, fat, ornery manager of a country-western station, and described what it was like to don an orange vest, sip whiskey, and wait for the leaves to rustle with the promise of an eight-pointer. His eyes softened, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, his back shaking off the tension of the day, of the life. A man clearly used to directing a conversation, he stopped every few minutes, as if he’d been woken from a nap, and asked, “Do you really want to hear all this?” Nikki nodded, taking him in. He seemed lonely, like he needed something from her.
“I haven’t done this in years.” He looked shy.
Oh, you and your wife don’t date other people? she almost said, but discretion trumped sass and rum, so she only smiled and watched him sign for the check.
When they got to his car, she stood next to him, arm to arm, a full head shorter than he was. The wind cut through her jacket, but she was too drunk to care. She felt around in her purse for the bag of Cadbury Easter Eggs she’d bought at the lobby store that day during her lunch break and held one out to him.
“No thanks.” He looked at her as though everything she did was amusing.
She felt amusing. “Right. You’re driving.”
He opened the car door for her, and she arranged herself in the padded leather passenger seat, ignoring her skirt sliding up her thighs. She peeled the foil off the egg and began to eat it one layer at a time: first the pastel-colored candy coating, and then the thick layer of chocolate beneath, and finally the core of a crunchy malted milk ball the size of a marble.
He grinned at her. “I’ve never seen anyone eat a piece of chocolate like that.”
“Try it.”
“Okay. Give me one.” He stretched out his hand, unwrapped the egg, and licked the purple candy coating, his brow furrowed in concentration.
She giggled.
“What’s funny?” He raised one eyebrow.
“Your lavender lips.”
He licked the sugar off his lips, laughing, and started the car, jutting out his chin in time with a Creedence song that came blasting from the radio. He looked free, boyish, and comfortable in Nikki’s presence.
“Here.” She pointed to her apartment building, and he pulled into a coveted spot a block down from her entrance, right in front of a broken streetlight. Kismet. He put the car in park.
“You’re a great girl, Nikki.”
High on mojitos and her hold on this man, she ran her fingers along the side of his face. A face unlike those of the boys she’d been with up until this point. The skin felt craggy beneath her hand. He looked old and vulnerable and very much hers for the taking. She leaned over and kissed him, tasting the chocolate. They alternately deflowered the Cadbury eggs and kissed until Nikki’s stash ran out, giggling like children home from a night of trick-or-treating, sneaking extra candy, dancing on the sofa, daring their parents to stop them.
It wasn’t until they were on the last egg that Nikki noticed the keychain that had been dangling in front of her the whole time, a photograph of his family tucked safely inside a rectangular plastic case. Clad in matching Hawaiian shirts, Jack and his teenage son sandwiched a willowy redhead with a purple lily in her hair.
The mojitos and plantains threatened to make an encore. Bad karma she was creating here. She’d pay for this one day. In blood. “Better go.” She kissed him on the cheek.
“Let me walk you to your door.” His voice turned businesslike, almost fatherly, as though he could erase whatever had happened between them if he wished.
“You watch too much local news,” she said over her shoulder as she hoisted herself out of his car and ran to her apartment, trying not to think of the liquor store two blocks down that had been robbed last week, or of Jack’s wife waiting for him in their cold bed, or of Nate listening to bad folk music in some bar in the Village, or that she was minutes from throwing up an evening of excess.
She was still camped out on the pink furry rug in the bathroom when Georgia came home from work. “I’m ill,” she groaned. “Very, very ill.”
Georgia refrained from commenting that the bathroom smelled like a still. “Did you take aspirin?”
Nikki knew Georgia wouldn’t ply her with questions. Georgia kept quiet when she sensed Nikki had a story to tell. She said nothing as she reached into the medicine cabinet for the aspirin bottle.
“Would you rather date a married man or ingest a tub of Crisco?” Nikki asked, still a little drunk.
“Choose the Crisco, Ni
kki.” Georgia dampened a washcloth with cold water and held it to Nikki’s neck.
During the half hour leading up to Nikki’s final siege of vomiting, she swore that she’d become the kind of person who would glance at that photo of Jack’s lovely wife and never speak to him again. She would call Nate and tell him that she’d go wherever the Peace Corps chose to send him and end her love affair with Washington and all its charms. The moment passed, and for the balance of Jack’s wife’s conference in Hilton Head, Nate’s training in the Big Apple, and Georgia’s turn working the late shift — three days total — Nikki and Jack ate and drank at passé watering holes and traded kisses in his car while his key chain dangled inches shy of his groin.
Georgia finally arrives at Rodeo’s, soaking wet, glasses foggy, brown turtleneck accentuating her breasts, elasticity intact. She’s aged well, better than Nikki. She apologizes for her tardiness without explanation, but Nikki guesses that she lost track of time in her windowless editing suite. Georgia would never brag — she hates talking about herself — but Nikki learned from a neighbor that Georgia’s a big deal in the documentary world, that one of her films was nominated for an Emmy last spring. These films are Georgia’s children, Nikki persuades herself when she’s staving off the occasional pang of jealousy.
Georgia kisses Nikki on the cheek and orders a glass of wine. The mariachi band has arrived; Nikki’s sweater has dried and she’s energized by her foray into her past. She fancies herself Nikki O’Neill, no relation to Tip, star Democratic rainmaker, charmer of powerful men like Jack O’Dell. She’s animated when she serves up amusing yet self-deprecating tales of her attempts to train Hugo, whom she hates.
“You loathe dogs,” Georgia says.
“Gives Tad’s life some purpose.” Nikki pours herself another glass of sangria and looks away. “I didn’t just say that.”
Georgia never offers false comfort like “He’ll find something” or “It will all work out” or “Let me ask Jim or Marcus or Skip if they can make a few phone calls.” She looks at Nikki with that expressionless, nonjudgmental Georgia look that’s always given Nikki’s other friends the willies. Nikki regains her composure, and they discuss Georgia’s new film on recidivism.
After the waiter places a fresh bowl of salsa on the table, Nikki offers up a few of the girls’ funny little observations on life. An Austen purist, she rants about a film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility she rented last weekend. A dazzling résumé, a dog-loving husband, smart kids, superior taste in literature — she’s hoping that the young woman wearing the gray wraparound dress is eavesdropping on her conversation and has recognized that Nikki has it all.
“You’re in a mood tonight.” Georgia stares at Nikki.
In an attempt to recapture her good spirits, Nikki points her chin in the direction of the girl, who is now cocking her head, listening intently to the older man regaling her with a tale, probably one that features himself as the hero. “Who do they remind you of?” Nikki starts to grin, sure that Georgia will call up her man-eating days and Jack O’Dell.
Georgia pauses and stares at the couple thoughtfully while Nikki fights the urge to give hints. “The woman could be any ambitious Capitol Hill nubile.”
Nikki swallows her grin, reeling from Georgia’s unintentional sucker punch.
Still focused on the couple, Georgia narrows her eyes, examining the handsome man. “And him? That’s a no-brainer.”
Nikki’s neck reddens. She wonders if Georgia even remembers Jack O’Dell.
“He’s Tad.” Georgia reaches for a chip.
Nikki swivels her head toward the man. Yes, she can see the resemblance: same business casual slacks, same fading tan, same “I’m in charge” wink to the waitress, same empty eyes. Eyes that crave the adulation Tad now receives from his training buddies, who join him in squandering their family time with long runs, long naps, long bike rides. Eyes that crave the sexual hunger that drained from her body with her breast milk and the energy it’s taken to prop him up. But this man wears a wedding ring, and Tad no longer does, which now bothers her.
Georgia glances at Nikki’s doppelgänger with a look of recognition and a poor attempt to mask her pity.
Nikki steals a sip of Georgia’s water and swallows, rinsing her mouth of the taste of sangria, once sweet, now all alcohol and bitterness from the orange rind. She tries too hard to sound flip when she says, “Would you rather be blind or invisible?”
The mariachi band begins to play to the near-empty restaurant, too festive and off key, but loud enough to drown out Georgia’s answer and the rain and the laughter of the couple two tables over.
HARVARD MAN
Tad Chamberlain, July 2003
My wife, Nikki, and I have our most enthusiastic sex on the nights when Georgia comes over for dinner, which hasn’t been for a long time. She’s due here in twenty minutes, and I’m still sweating like a swine from biking down to the Jefferson Memorial, twenty-three miles roundtrip.
I peel off my jersey and contemplate the unopened package of razor blades sitting next to the bathroom sink. Who will notice if I don’t shave? Georgia Dumfries. Nikki and I have never discussed it, but we habitually pose for her friend’s cameralike gaze. Nikki will kiss me hello tenderly on the lips, or I’ll pick up one of my daughters and swing her over my head until she belly laughs. Small embellishments like that. And after Georgia leaves, we’ll stretch out on our king-size bed and agree that she deserves to find a good man, because beneath her reserve she’s warm and kind. We’ll run through the tired, diminishing list of our single friends and come up with nobody for her. And then we’ll sigh, and Nikki’s breathing will quicken, and we’ll ravage each other like we did during our early courtship, when we spent full Sundays in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with Georgia, who likely heard our every groan and giggle through the paper-thin walls. Things shift around in my biking shorts in anticipation of the end of the evening.
I run a hot shower to loosen up my quad muscles. Too many hills today. I’m getting old, a thought I brush aside, along with the phone call I received from my college roommate yesterday, telling me that he’s running for the Senate. He’ll win too. Goddamned chads. I’m on my third job since Dubya stole Florida. Lobbyists used to dribble my name like a basketball; the Gores showed up at the kids’ christening (they gave us two BabyBjörns, which we still keep, even though the girls just turned seven).
I raise the water temperature, and the combination of the scalding heat and my endorphin buzz anesthetizes me, for now anyway. Through a thickening mist, I see Nikki come in and open the medicine cabinet. I haven’t seen that blouse since early in our marriage, when I got jealous as hell the night she wore it to a dinner meeting with a charming Midwestern real estate mogul. She didn’t need to rely on a tight blouse to make gallons of rain for the Democrats. The first Thanksgiving we spent in Phoenix, she almost persuaded her uncle Richard — Barry Goldwater’s drinking buddy, no less — to write a check to the Clinton campaign.
When the water turns tepid, I open the shower door and Nikki faces me through the scrim of steam. Nursing two babies stole the perkiness from her breasts, and her blouse pulls between the middle buttons, revealing a dingy beige bra. “Here,” she says, offering me a Gatorade with her jaunty smile, which during the early days of my professional purgatory meant something besides pity and resignation.
“Georgia!” She’s always prompt. I mean to kiss her cheek, but she moves her head and my lips land on a patch of her wiry hair. She’s contributed her usual brick of Stilton cheese toward dessert. She and Nikki remind me of the women I knew in college who read a lot of George Eliot and Margaret Drabble and drank tea instead of Diet Coke in the late afternoon.
The kitchen smells like mint and garlic and Nikki’s lilacs, which puts me in a festive mood. Nikki opens the back door and in bounds Hugo, our German shepherd–lab mix. He pounces on Georgia, who’s built like a slightly bottom-heavy Eastern European gymnast, and knocks her off balance. A true cat
person, Georgia recoils.
“Down, Hugo,” Nikki orders without conviction. It’s been months since Hugo joined the family, and she still hasn’t learned how to control him. She feebly grabs his collar, and he tugs her shoulder toward him. She looks up at her friend. “That green suits you. You should wear pastels more often. The girls used to love it when I wore pink, the official princess color. Who would have thought? Runs against the grain of my inner feminist,” Nikki prattles on to Georgia, which is easy to do, since Georgia always waits a few seconds after you finish talking before she responds.
“Girls, Georgia’s here,” Nikki calls.
Georgia and I follow her to the family room, where the twins, scrubbed and dressed in matching pajamas, are parallel reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
“Hi, Sophie,” Georgia says. “Which do you like better, Slytherin or Gryffindor?” She gets her name right on the first try, when even my mother can’t tell the girls apart if they’re wearing the same thing.
“Gryffindor,” Sophie answers shyly.
“Slytherin’s mean,” Emma pipes up.
I tug lightly at their ponytails. “In this house, you’ve got to keep up with your Hogwarts trivia,” I tease. Then I kiss my daughters goodnight, and they head upstairs with Nikki.
Georgia examines me. She hasn’t seen me since I started working out, and damn it feels good to be back to my fighting weight: 174 pounds.
“I hear you’re competing in triathlons.” She dips a carrot stick into Nikki’s famous and labor-intensive artichoke dip. “Sounds like a lot of work.”
“Not if you love it. I swim with a masters team at the crack of dawn, over at Hains Point. I can usually squeeze a four- or five-mile hoof on the Mall into my lunch hour, and weekends are for long rides.” When I describe my routine to Georgia, it sounds more self-indulgent than impressive. “I signed up for a half Ironman in Texas in late fall,” I add for no reason.
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