Naked

by Megan Hart

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone who’s not sure there’s a God, just hopes so.”

  We both laughed again. I contemplated this, thinking of how sometimes friendships erupted in unlikely places and for unexpected reasons. “My dad’s hardcore Catholic. My mom’s become an observant Jew. When I was growing up they weren’t anything. They left it for me to decide when I grew up. And now…when I want something, I can’t decide what to believe.”

  “Really?” Chad frowned. “See, that’s what I tried to tell Luke, but he’s not convinced.”

  We both glanced over to his partner, a handsome black man with a shaved bald head and loud, infectious laugh. I looked at Chad. “You want my opinion, from my experience?”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “Give her something, one way or the other. When she’s grown up, she’ll make her own choices no matter what you’ve taught her. But if you give her nothing, she might not know.”

  He nodded again, slowly. “Thanks, Olivia.”

  It was easy advice to give, though it didn’t do me a damn bit of good. “I think my parents both would like it if I picked what they are, but they’re both a little…”

  “Fierce?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Scary.”

  He nodded. “After my dad died, my mom started in on church in a big way. She’d always gone, but after he passed away, wow. You’d have thought the Pope himself had sent her an engraved invitation to weekly Mass.”

  “Cake!” Devon shouted, and the screaming, writhing horde of children stampeded into the dining room, while Chad and I leaped aside.

  “How’d she accept your sister converting?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing she could do about it, right? Like you said, my sister made a choice.”

  “How’s your mom with it now?”

  “I think it helps that she likes my brother-in-law. But I know she’s lit many a candle for my sister’s soul.” His tone was slightly mocking, a little sad. “Hell, mine, too. Not that I think either of us needs it. Hey. You should meet my sister.”

  My expression must have shown my bemusement, because Chad laughed. “She’s not scary.”

  Chapter

  16

  Harrisburg International Airport is tiny and yet every single person who came down the stairs to the luggage area was not Alex. Little old ladies in Las Vegas T-shirts hugged squealing grandchildren, and suit-wearing businessmen checked their BlackBerry devices in a frenzy of thumb-typing. I hated every one of them for not being Alex.

  I finally saw him at the top of the escalator and his name tried to leap from my lips. I was saved from embarrassment by the lack of air in my lungs; I’d been holding my breath. I took a few steps toward him, gave a mental “fuck-it-all” and ran.

  He caught me and twirled me around, just like every sappy couple in every romantic movie ever made. He buried his face against my neck and nibbled. He squeezed me. I stepped back to look at him. It had been only a week but he looked different. A little tan, his hair mussed. Instead of the familiar long, striped scarf, he wore a colorful scarf in a woven Mexican pattern.

  “For you,” he said.

  I draped it around my shoulders. That first kiss after being apart for a week was soft, then hard, quick turning slow. I’d been hungry for this meal, his mouth. His tongue. We were making a spectacle of ourselves but nobody seemed to care.

  “Fuck, I missed you,” he said.

  “I missed you, too. How was Mexico?”

  “Lots of tequila and Dos Equis.”

  “Oh, torture. What did you have?”

  “Tequila. And Dos Equis.”

  He didn’t sound teasing, and I held him off at arm’s length for a moment to study him. I’d never seen him really drink. I’d never asked him why. Now I wished I had.

  “And I still spent two days shitting my guts out, but I blame the fish taco.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Ew. Gross.”

  Alex grinned and pulled me closer. “I was glad to have my own room, let’s just say that.”

  “Alex!”

  We both turned. A young man dressed in the blue uniform of the airline, his blond hair spiked and frosted, waved a long, striped scarf. He crossed the baggage area to press it into Alex’s hand. “You forgot this on the plane.”

  “Thanks, man.” Alex took the scarf. “I didn’t even notice.”

  Blondie and I stared each other down before he backed off. Did I know for sure he was flirting with my boyfriend? Hell, yes. Did he know enough to back the fuck off?

  Hell, yes.

  He shot a slightly woeful look tinged with regret at Alex, who’d turned his back after taking the scarf. Then he headed back the way he’d come, taking the stairs two at time. He stopped again on the overhead bridge to look down at us. I waved.

  “That was nice of him,” I said benignly.

  Alex laughed. “Yeah. Cuz I so couldn’t buy another one of these at Abercrombie & Fitch.”

  I hadn’t heard him sound like that before. Smug and offhand. It wasn’t flattering.

  “Lots of people would be upset to have lost a fifty-dollar scarf.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, but blondie’d disappeared. “I figured he’d keep it. He liked it enough.”

  “They’re probably not allowed to keep things left on the plane.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to offer hand jobs instead of cream with the coffee, either.”

  My lip curled and I took a step away from him. At once he looked contrite. He caught me before I could retreat farther.

  “Baby, I’m sorry. That was a shit thing to say.”

  “Yes, it was!” On a few levels.

  “I’m sorry.” His sly, wicked “I know how charming I am” smile was back. I hadn’t seen that one in a while. I hadn’t missed it. “I didn’t take him up on the offer.”

  I snatched my hand away. “I didn’t think you would.”

  He took it back. Pulled me close. His voice softened, the smile eased into something more familiar and sweet. “I’m sorry. I was making a joke. A bad one. I’m an asshole.”

  It’s never easy to see someone you love as less than shining, even if they admit to it. I gave him a grudging nod. He kissed me. I kissed him back.

  “Fuck, Olivia, I missed you so much.” His words, whispered in my ear, had heat that transferred directly to my clit. “I didn’t even jerk off once the entire time.”

  I put my arms around his neck and turned my face to breathe into his ear. “I made myself come every single day, thinking of you.”

  Every muscle tensed against me. “Really…?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck me,” Alex said. “Christ, that’s fucking hot.”

  I hadn’t, but I was glad I’d told him the small white lie. “Take me home and I’ll show you how I did it.”

  We didn’t make it home. Alex got me off in the front seat of my car in the parking garage. The car filled with the smell of sex and the sound of our mingled groans. The weather was too warm for us to steam the windows, and I’d parked in the middle of a long line of cars everyone leaving the garage had to pass.

  We sat, feigning chatter, his hand between my legs where nobody could see. His fingers in my panties, my skirt hiked to my thighs. I couldn’t reach his cock without making it obvious what was going on, so he took it into his fist and pumped it slowly beneath the cover of his scarf. Nothing about his movements gave us away.

  I opened my legs for him and said his name when he fucked his fingers inside me to get them wet, and when he drew them up over my clit in small, tight circles that made me wild. He kissed me just once when I was finished, when he’d come with a groan and low cry into the softness of his scarf.

  “I’m glad you’re home.”

  “I love you,” Alex said.

  The phone call came in on my cell as I was watching late-afternoon TV and reading my mail. I’d had the early shift at Foto Folks and Alex was off somewhere, doing whatever he
did. I was thinking of taking a long hot shower to rinse away the smell of cheap makeup and get the feathers from my hair. I didn’t recognize the number but picked up, anyway.

  “Hi, is this Olivia?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Hello, Olivia, this is Elle Stewart. You met my brother Chad at a party this past weekend.”

  “Oh, right, yes.” I sat up straight, mail forgotten.

  “I hope you don’t mind that he gave me your number. He said you two had an interesting discussion.”

  “Umm…yes, we did.”

  Awkward silence.

  “Well, I’d like to invite you to come to our house for a Passover seder, if you’re interested.” Elle spoke quickly but enunciated every syllable carefully. “I won’t be offended if you say no, and I know it’s a strange thing to be invited to by a stranger…and you might have plans to be with family…”

  “I don’t, actually. Passover. That’s coming up soon, right?”

  “Yes. Next week. I’ve invited a lot of people, so you won’t have to feel you’d be sitting around with a bunch of family you don’t know.” She paused, then sounded drily amused. “Not that I want you to think your invitation isn’t special.”

  I laughed. She sounded like Chad, her voice higher and softer, but with the same inflections. “Thanks very much for the invitation. I’ll have to check my calendar.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to answer right this second. But we’d love to have you. Dan and I, that is. My husband. He loves having guests and Chad said he thought you might be interested.”

  “I am.”

  “Good.” She laughed again. “My brother is a sweetheart. He’s a fixer, that Chaddie.”

  I was flipping through my calendar as we spoke, still not sure about taking her up on the invitation. “Am I the baby bird he found on the ground?”

  “Something like that, I think. Olivia, if you’d like to bring a guest, you’re more than welcome. If that would make it less awkward.”

  “Oh, thank you.” I stopped my calendar on the date she’d mentioned. “I’d love to come. With a guest. What time?”

  I marked her information on the calendar and we hung up. I sat back in my chair, still thinking of a shower. Thinking of needing so badly to be fixed even a stranger had seen it.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ask Alex to go with me to the Stewarts’ house. I hadn’t been to a seder in years, but the last one had been a nightmare. Hours long, too much praying, people I didn’t know making me feel stupid for not understanding how to follow along. I didn’t want to subject him to that, not for what was my own personal journey. Still, when he told me he’d be out of town that night, more business, I couldn’t stop feeling disappointed.

  Sarah, too, was busy with her own family seder. “You know you could’ve come along with me, anytime.”

  “I know.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad,” she said with a laugh. “I’m the craziest one in my family, and you love me.”

  “I’m sure it would be great. I just can’t take four days off right now.”

  “Right, right. Well, anytime, Liv. You know it. Hey, maybe next year you’ll be having your own seder.”

  “Riiiight.”

  I went alone.

  I wasn’t sure what to wear to a seder, and settled for a long, cinnamon-colored skirt, my knee-high leather riding boots and a soft, cream-colored silk blouse. I’d washed and palm-rolled my hair just that morning, and pulled the locks back into a thick bun at the base of my neck. I felt overdressed, but being underdressed would’ve been worse.

  I stared up the sidewalk to the small stone house, almost identical to the ones on either side of it. A light shone from the front windows and on the porch. I shifted the bottle of wine I’d brought, gussied up with a silk bag and a gift tag.

  I’d had to call my mom for advice on the wine. I could tell she was torn between glee that I was voluntarily participating in a Jewish holiday and grief that I wasn’t celebrating it with her. I gave her credit, though, for not saying so to me. She gave me the names of several brands of Kosher for Passover wine and said at the end, “These people. They’re nice?”

  “Nice enough to invite me to their home for Passover, Mom.”

  “You know you could come here, anytime, Olivia.”

  Of course I knew it, but I didn’t give her a reason why I hadn’t. She didn’t push. We’d hung up without acrimony.

  The front door opened and a handsome, sandy-haired man looked out.

  “Olivia?”

  “Hi, yes.” I hesitated, not sure if I should hold out my hand, if he’d be offended that I assumed we, strangers of different genders, should touch, even socially.

  “Dan Stewart.” He solved the issue by holding out his hand to me. We shook.

  “Hey, honey, we have another guest.” Dan crossed the brightly lit kitchen to give the dark-haired woman at the sink a squeeze.

  She turned, drying her hands on a dish towel, and smiled. “Hi. I’m Elle. You must be Olivia? C’mon into the dining room. I just took the brisket out of the oven and it can cool while we get started.”

  I saw Chad right away, along with his partner, Luke, and their daughter, Leah. She was laughing, sitting on the lap of an older woman who looked too much like Elle to be anyone other than her mother. Dan’s mom, Dotty, sat at the other end of the table chatting with Marcy and Wayne, a young couple with a toddler. Dan made the round of introductions as the doorbell rang distantly, and Elle excused herself to answer the door.

  I was relieved I wasn’t the only nonfamily member, though I did appear to be the only charity case. Chad came around the table to hug me as if I was family, though, and whispered in my ear, “I’m glad you could make it.”

  “Okay, everyone, let’s get started so we can eat,” Elle said from the foot of the table. “We do what we like to call Seder Lite—”

  “Which means we get to the food sooner,” Dan interjected.

  She gave him a stern look. “Which means we hit the important parts without going over everything a dozen times.”

  “And we get to the food sooner,” said Dan. “But don’t cut out the four cups of wine!”

  “No, never!” She looked faintly scandalized and gave him a look of pure affection.

  I’d been seated next to Elle’s mother on one side, with Marcy, the woman with the baby, across from me. We moved on with the seder, which did indeed prove to be light and entertaining, at least for most of us. Beside me, Mrs. Kavanagh gripped her Haggadah, the prayer book, so tightly her fingers turned white. She didn’t utter a word along with any of the prayers, not even the English readings that explained the holiday. A quick glance at her eyes showed me she was reading along, but her firm-pressed lips proved she wasn’t going to speak them aloud.

  I’m used to feeling out of place in groups. At home and in school the color of my skin had set me apart even as I was being included. But here, I wasn’t the only non-Jew, or nonwhite, or even the only nonfamily member.

  Here, I felt I belonged.

  “Olivia?”

  I’d missed something with my mind wandering. “Beg pardon?”

  Dan held up his Haggadah. “Would you like to read the next section?”

  “Sure.” I found the place he meant and read aloud the passage about Moses leading his people out of Egypt, and how they’d been pursued. How they’d been slaves.

  Different.

  I stuttered on the last few sentences as emotion welled inside me, strangling. Mrs. Kavanagh gave me a curious look but said nothing. A song began. Dan pounded on the table and led the chorus so that even those of us who didn’t know the Hebrew words could sing along. “Dayenu.” It should have been enough. The song got faster and faster until only Dan was singing, everyone else out of breath. We finished it up with a rousing shout and much laughter.

  “You always were so good at that,” Dotty said proudly. “You and Sammy both. It’s a shame your brother couldn’t be here tonight.”

  Dan
’s broad grin got a little tight. “Yeah. Too bad.”

  The moment passed, subtle enough not to be awkward. I hadn’t quite recovered, though, from my epiphany. I raised my glass with the rest of them, ate the hard-boiled egg and parsley dipped in salt water, followed the order of the seder until it was time at last to eat the festive meal. Then, unable to hold back any longer the burst of emotion whirling around inside me, I excused myself from the table to use the bathroom.

  I ran cool water from the tap and bathed my wrists and dotted my forehead. I looked in the mirror at myself. What was I? For the first time in my life I thought I might have started to know.

  I stopped in the kitchen on the way back to see if I could help serve anything. Elle, her hair pulled off her face, bent to peer into the oven, where she poked a pan of roasted potatoes and tutted.

  “Can I help?”

  She stood, surprised, then shook her head. “My mother will say she told me to put the potatoes in an hour earlier. And she was right. I’ll just turn up the heat and they’ll be ready in another ten minutes. We’ll still be eating the rest of the food. It’s fine.”

  “Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?”

  She laughed. “Myself. I’m glad you could make it tonight, Olivia. Are you enjoying it?”

  “Yes, very much. Thanks for having me.”

  She didn’t seem to be much for small talk, which left an awkward silence between us as I struggled for something chatty to say so we weren’t just staring. Elle didn’t seem to mind. She pulled out a bowl of what looked like guacamole from the fridge and held it out.

  “You could take this in while I fight these potatoes.”

  I took the heavy cut-glass bowl. “Sure.”

  She tilted her head to look at me. “It’s moving, isn’t it? The story?”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  She shook her head and nudged the dial on the oven higher, then leaned against the counter. “I don’t think so. I just remember feeling so lost and overwhelmed the first few times I tried to do anything with Dan’s family. I wanted very much to fit in. They all had this secret language, these…traditions. Stories they told about what they’d done on vacation as children. My family doesn’t really have that, so it sort of freaked me out at first.”