by Tia Williams
Jenna picked up a glass and tapped it with a spoon. She pasted on her hostess-of-the-year smile. “Everyone, I’m happy you could join me tonight. Have a seat, let’s eat!”
Figuring out the seating arrangement blew everyone’s minds. Jenna’s guests bumped into each other, giggling, and then fell into the wrong chairs, and giggled about that. Carlita knocked into a place setting and Jenna’s priceless (borrowed) Hermes plates went crashing to the floor. When everyone finally sat, it took the guests ten minutes to even notice the salads in front of them. Billie and Jay wore goofily euphoric expressions, their hands involved in mysterious business under the table. Carlita peeled off her press-on nails while staring into Elodie’s eyes. Tim was lecturing no one on the genius of the cheese biscuits.
And then there was Jenna, sitting between Eric and Jimmy—all three, dead sober.
“These biscuits are so delectable, though,” rhapsodized Tim. “They’re, like, spiritually fulfilling. If this biscuit were a woman, I’d paint her toenails, and then do the Magic Mike ‘Pony’ dance.”
“Channing Tatum looks mad black,” said Carlita. “He does!” exclaimed Billie. “Like he’s passing.”
“Speaking of Channings who pass,” started Elodie, “Carol Channing was secretly black.”
Tim frowned. “Who’s that?”
“Old musical theater comedienne,” said Jimmy.
“The skinny redhead? With the show that reruns on Comedy Network?”
“That’s Carol Burnett,” said Jay. “Miss Hannigan’s black?”
“Mindy Kaling’s black,” said Carlita with authority.
Eric sighed.
“Jay,” started Billie, “should we call the sitter and see if May went to sleep?”
“No, we should enjoy the dinner and drugs,” he said, kissing her cheek.
“They’re the cutest married couple I know,” Jenna said to Jimmy.
He took a sip of wine, which was from his bottle, as requested. “So what’s your story? Have you ever been married?”
Eric pretended to be involved with his salad—but he was hanging on every word of their conversation.
“I was in a very long relationship. Engaged, but we never married. How about you? Marriage? Divorce? Engagement?” Jenna giggled. “Sounds like the over-forty version of the ‘Marry, Fuck, Kill’ game.”
Eric’s mind was blown. She’d been engaged? To whom? What happened?
“No,” he said. “Never married, divorced, or engaged.”
“Oh. Huh.”
Suddenly, Jimmy's energy changed from casual to prickly. On-edge.
“What does ‘huh’ mean?”
Before Jenna could respond, he said, “I know what it means.” Then he affected a whiny, effeminate voice. “Eww, you’re really fifty and you’ve never been married? You’ve never even proposed? Oh, you must be a commitment-phobe. You must be emotionally blocked-off. You must be impossible in relationships.”
Jenna stared at him, shocked.
“Excuse me, but you asked me if I’d been married,” she said, trying to manage the withering read she felt bubbling up inside of her. “Was this not the conversation we were having?”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, swirling his wine angrily in his glass. “You just had a tone. And I didn’t take you for a woman who’d go to such a clichéd place.”
That’s when Eric snapped.
“She’s the cliché?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You need to watch your mouth, son,” he said.
Jimmy sized him up, and then snorted. “You’ve been throwing jabs at me all night. Why? And are you really son-ing me? How old are you, anyway? I think it’s past your bedtime.”
Tim’s fork froze halfway up to his mouth.
“What’d you just say?” asked Eric.
“You heard me,” said Jimmy. “Fuck you, American Apparel.”
“Eric!” Jenna was flabbergasted.
Jimmy slammed his drink down. “American Apparel?”
“Cool jeggings, bro.”
“They’re skinny jeans, not jeggings.”
“They’re jeggings,” Eric said. “It’s a portmanteau, I’d think you’d be elated.”
“Do we have a problem here?”
“Not at all,” said Jenna, panicking. “Eric, it’s fine. Eat your salad. Everyone just settle!”
“Nah, fuck that,” said Eric, getting worked up. “I can’t let him speak to you like this in your own home. Dude, you’re having a temper tantrum because she asked you the same question you asked her? If you feel a way about your past, that’s not Jenna’s fault. And it is highly suspect that you’re mad old and you’ve never even been engaged. Though you just showed why. This was the audition, asshole! I’m so embarrassed for you, you Williamsburg ass sommelier ass goofy ass fail.”
Tim burst out laughing. “Now it’s a party!”
Jimmy was sweating and breathing hard. “You’re out of line, young man.”
“And you’re a throbbing forehead vein of a person.”
“Is that guy for real?” Jimmy asked Jenna.
“Eric? He is. And I hate to say it, but I tend to agree with him.” Realizing she’d lost control of the evening, she tried to end it altogether. “Maybe we should all just call it a night…”
“Maybe he and I should discuss this outside,” Jimmy said, standing.
Eric stood, too. “I mean, we can knuckle up if you want. Let’s go.”
“No one knuckles up at my house!” Jenna hopped up, grabbing Eric’s arm. “Jay, do something!”
Jay, who grew up attending parties he had to bring pistols to, was unmoved. “Jimmy, don’t front like you’re going to fight this kid,” he said. “You got three decades on him. It’ll end badly for you.”
“Nah, E talks real slick, but he has no thug,” said Tim. “It’d be over in four seconds.”
“Yo, what’s wrong with your face?” Eric forgot about Jimmy as he squinted at his best friend. “Why do you have Kanye cheeks?”
They all turned to look at him. His lips and nose had doubled in size, and his cheeks looked like he was storing acorns for the winter. His fingers were Bratwurst-bloated.
Jenna slapped her hand over her mouth.
“My face does feel mad tingly. The fuck?” He flew out of his seat, peering into the antique mirror hanging behind the table. “It’s my nut allergy!”
Billie burst into tears. “May said the mangos at that Jamaican resort made her throat itch! What if she has an allergy like this? Lifetime ban on tropical vacations, Jay, we can’t risk it, the hospitals are twenty years behind!”
“No more drugs for my wife. Ever,” said Jay, hugging her.
“Were there nuts in something?” Eric asked Jenna.
“There were very fine almond slivers in the salad dressing. You didn’t see them, Tim?”
“I thought they were skinny pieces of Parmesan! I’m gonna die. Such an un-thug way to die, oh my God…”
Jay sprung to action. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
In the commotion, Jimmy grabbed his fedora and stormed out. Jenna hardly noticed. What she did notice was the disappearance of two other guests.
“Where’s Carlita and Elodie?” Jenna looked around the room.
She stormed down the hallway to her bedroom, with Eric on her heels. Flinging open the door, she saw Elodie and Carlita intertwined on the beautiful Frette duvet she bought just for the party. Carlita was face-first in Elodie’s stomach—inches from her promised land.
“Elodie Franklin! Are you fucking in the middle of myparty?” Elodie giggled and said, “Payback!”
“It was her idea, ma’am,” said Carlita.
“Ma’am?” Eric shook his head. “No. ‘Ma’am’ implies respect. You’re about to administer mouth romance on your hostess’ bed. Ma’am isn’t the thing.”
“Sweetie, your boyfriend has swollen up into elephantine proportions,” said Jenna. “Jay’s taking him to the ER, you should probably go with.”
“Can’t take him nowhere,” she muttered, pulling her dress down and readjusting her panties.
Eric and Jenna looked at each other and shut the door.
Eric stayed to help Jenna clean up. She didn’t ask him to, and he didn’t offer. But when Carlita and Elodie stumbled out of the door to make more Sapphic mischief, and Billie and Jay dragged Tim into the ambulance—Eric simply made no move to go. Instead, after Jenna let Lula go early (she was too embarrassed to face her), he grabbed a broom and began sweeping up stray shards of Jenna’s dead Hermes plates. Then, he and Jenna did the dishes together—he washed, she dried.
Once everyone had left, Jenna had arranged her glamorous couture gown in its garment bag, and then changed into a pajama top, Equinox shorts and the fuzzy orange slipper socks she’d worn every day in Virginia. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a scrunchie. She looked crazy, but didn’t care; she just wanted to relax. Now, she and Eric were plopped side by side on the couch. They were on their third glass of Eric’s wine.
“I threw a party that ended with a guest being carted away on a stretcher,” Jenna said, dazed. “Wearing an oxygen mask. After narrowly escaping anaphylactic shock. That happened.”
“I have so many regrets,” said Eric. “I never should’ve invited Tim. Tim never should’ve invited Carlita. I never should’ve gone HAM on Jiminy Cricket.”
Jenna laid her head back on the couch, flinging an arm over her eyes. “That was the best part.”
“By the way, fuck Tim. I do have thug in me,” said Eric, having a delayed reaction to Tim’s write-off. “Just ‘cause I don’t lead with it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
Jenna took a huge gulp of wine. “Jimmy was so condescending. So rude.”
“Why were you even entertaining him, though? You should’ve bounced him after ‘arfe.’”
“He was my guest. I was trying to be a good hostess!” She threw up her arms, and spilled a little wine on her thigh. It dribbled down the inside of her leg. She swiped it up with her finger and licked it off. Eric watched her, and it took him a full ten seconds to return to the conversation.
“I used to throw incredible parties. And I used to be incredible at work.” She sighed. “I feel like my best days are behind me.”
Eric poured them both more wine. “Why do you keep looking backwards, though?”
“Do I?”
“A lot.” He turned toward her. “Can I ask you something? You live in a studio-plus apartment in the hood, next to a building that could pass for the New Jack City crack house…”
“Accurate.”
“But you hired, like, a servant…”
“Helper!”
“…for the night and had everything catered, and you have this fancy furniture. How’d you pay for all of this?”
Jenna looked around her apartment, feeling both exposed and ashamed. But she was also grateful that Eric was confronting her in this way. She deserved to be called out. And she wanted to deal with it.
“I opened a Barneys charge and blacked out,” she confessed. “Why?”
She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her pajama top. “I was trying to be a person I’m not anymore.”
“But you have nothing to prove. You’re fun and real and … cool, you know? Just being relaxed, regular you. In those socks.”
She looked down at her fuzzy orange feet. Until that second, it hadn’t occurred to Jenna that she was wearing what she was wearing—in front of Eric. Was she really allowing herself to be seen in gym shorts and a pajama top around a man? With her hair up in a scrunchie? All those years living with Brian, her hanging-around-the-house clothes always matched. And if she was wearing shorts and a top, they were tiny and cute. She tucked her feet under her butt.
“Stop torturing yourself about who you used to be,” continued Eric. “This is Jenna Jones, Part Deux. And sequels are always better.”
“That is patently untrue!” exclaimed Jenna.
“Aliens? Rambo? Lethal Weapon 2?”
“So, if I were an ‘80s action movie, I’d be gold.”
“I’m just saying, fuck the past. Get excited about what happens now. And next.”
“You’re right.” She laid her head back on the couch again, thinking. “I was trying to do that tonight. Staying open about meeting someone new. I kind of knew me and Jimmy weren’t a match, but I didn’t want to write him off. Because you never know. People are weird on first dates.”
Eric looked skeptical. “If you feel like someone sucks when you first meet them, they usually suck.”
“But would I even be able to recognize a great first date? It’s been so long, I can’t remember how it feels when it’s right with someone.”
“How do you want it to feel?”
She thought this over, and then looked over at Eric. Her lips were slightly berry-stained from the wine, her eyes bright with intoxication.
“I’ve never said this out loud,” said Jenna. “So be gentle.”
“I gotta hear all parts of this.”
“Intellectually, I know what I need. Compatibility, similar world views, kindness, humor, no sociopathic tendencies. But emotionally?” She moaned and put her face in her hands. “No, I can’t do this.”
“Come on, you can say it.”
“Okay, you’re a silent movie buff. You’ve seen that Greta Garbo movie, Flesh and the Devil?”
“1926. She plays a lusty, amoral seductress.”
“Right!” said Jenna, beaming. It was such a delicious feeling, knowing someone who had the same stuff in his head as she did. “There’s this moment in Flesh and the Devil when Garbo and her secret lover are in church. During communion, he takes a sip from the chalice. And when it’s passed down to her, she stops, caresses it, and then…”
“She turns it around to drink from the same spot his mouth touched.” Eric’s face broke into a small smile of recognition.
“It’s so illicit.” Jenna clasped her hand to her heart. “She practically sucks it. In front of everyone. In church.”
“Profane as fuck.”
“Profane, but pure,” she said. “Sacred. That’s what I want it to feel like. I don’t want these clinical, awkward setups. I don’t feel like doing this twenty more times. I can’t imagine meeting my soulmate through an interview process. I want to know without words. I want to fall so violently that I risk breaking into a million pieces. I want to love so desperately it’s indecent. I want it to be wild and fated and forever. A no-choice connection. Do you know what I mean?”
He glanced at her. “I think so.”
“I know that kind of love is an unsustainable fantasy. But I’d kill to have that intensity of feeling for someone.” She fingered the sleeves of her pajama top, now feeling self-conscious.
“Don’t settle till you have it,” said Eric, quietly. “I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Then, the air between them went thick. Jenna sat dead-still, her heart pounding. She didn’t know if it was the wine, or him, or them—but she felt dizzy. She couldn’t look at Eric. And he wouldn’t look at her. Her skin flushed hot, and with trembling hands, she lifted a few stray curls off of her neck—and then she sensed Eric tense up. That’s when she finally met his eyes. She watched him watch her, mesmerized, as if he wanted to touch her skin back there; to feel it, taste it. It was all over his face. He wanted to taste her everywhere.
Jenna couldn’t look away. She squeezed her thighs together, trying to squelch the ache. She stopped breathing, stopped thinking, and allowed herself to slip into whatever electric thing was happening. But in seconds, her brain took over and rejected it completely. She tore her eyes away from his.
Jenna felt exposed. She was shocked that she’d given into that tension even for an instant. Whatever she’d just felt was dangerous, ridiculous and impossible. But secretly, she wanted Eric’s mouth on hers again. God, she craved it. The ache was always on the periphery when she was around him. Even wh
en she’d genuinely wanted to murder him. She couldn’t get it out of her mind, the way he’d made her feel.
And now Eric knew it.
Oh please. He’s always known it.
“I gotta go,” he said. “Now.”
“Oh. Are you sure?”
“Really sure.”
He shot up off the couch and Jenna followed him to the door. “Umm…so how are you getting home? Can I call you a cab? The train is pretty far.”
“I’m cool. I’ll just walk and smoke.”
“Weed? That’s so dangerous. What if the cops see you?”
“Don’t worry, they won’t,” he said. “Weed is nothing. Did you smell what the five guys on your corner were smoking?”
“Well, just be safe,” she said, opening her door. They hesitated in the doorway, unclear about how they should say goodbye, but they both knew it shouldn’t involve touching.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” said Eric, his hands thrust in his pockets.
“Yep, tomorrow. Have a good night. And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For defending my honor. And cleaning. And listening.”
He smiled. “Anytime.”
Then he was gone. And Jenna stood with her back to her door for ten minutes, clutching her stomach.
For as long as she lived, she’d never figure out what compelled her to go to her window. A part of her just needed air. Another, bigger part hoped she could steal a secret glimpse of Eric walking to the subway. But there was no way he’d still be outside.
Jenna rushed over to the open window so fast that she banged her toe against the coffee table. Yelping, she tore back her curtain—and couldn’t believe what she saw.
Eric hadn’t gone anywhere. His back was to her, and he was leaning up against the half-dead tree in front of her building. A hazy trail of smoke billowed above him.
“Eric!”
Startled, he turned and peered up at her second-floor window.
He looked caught. Guilty. “Why are you still here?”
“I don’t know.” He gazed down the street at nothing, and then back up at her. “Why’d you come to the window?”
