Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  They were lunching at a pleasantly modern, fashionable restaurant on the east side, with an excellent view of a spectacular interior atrium fountain. Rona ordered wine, and Celia reacted as if she’d ordered skunk. Especially when Edward ordered a glass, too.

  “Isn’t it a little early in the day?” she commented censoriously. “No, I’ll just have tea,” she told the waiter.

  “We’ll pretend we’re in France, and it’ll be all right,” Rona said, willing to ease the moment. “Tell me about how you spend your days, what interests you,” she encouraged. She’d asked hundreds of students the same question.

  Celia seemed to have nothing much happening in her life. She was divorced and had no children. She did a little volunteer work with animals and more volunteering at church, and not much else. She briefly lit up when discussing rescuing cats, but otherwise, Celia came across as repressed. Lonely and without a boyfriend.

  Despite her age, Celia seemed immature. When talk about her activities wound down, she complained, “I don’t understand why you wanted me to come to lunch, Dad.”

  “To meet Rona.”

  “Why? I’m long done with college and too young to be considering a legacy donation.”

  Celia was being deliberately dense, but Rona made an effort to smile pleasantly. “I’m not a university recruiter or fund raiser. I’m an old friend of Edward’s.” She shot him a glance. His expression was neutral. “We’re seeing each other now. Naturally, I wanted to meet you.”

  “Seeing each other?” Celia looked at her father in horror. “You’re dating?”

  Edward didn’t deny it. “Yes.”

  “What about Mother? You can’t!” She looked outraged. “Mother is alive in heaven waiting for you, Daddy!”

  Rona held her breath, hanging on Edward’s reply. What kind of weird religion did this family have? Could Edward possibly share Celia’s bizarre ideas about marriage being eternal? Was that why he had not mentioned the subject?

  Edward replied seriously, “The church encourages us to find consolation during our life on earth.”

  His daughter continued unabated, now even more upset. “You’re betraying Mother. Anyway, you’re ol—retired now. You shouldn’t want to have sex—to have a relationship,” she said, showing disgust.

  Rona waited a beat for Edward to reply, but he said nothing. Did he possibly believe that nonsense? She hoped not. They might as well tell Celia how things stood.

  “You’re an adult and living on your own,” Rona said. “What difference is it to you whether you eventually have a stepmother or not? It’s not as if your life will change.”

  “Stepmother? You’ll never be my stepmother. He isn’t free to marry. How dare you come between my father and my mother?”

  Rona paled, struck by how righteous the absurd accusation would have been twenty-five years ago.

  “That’s enough, Celia,” Edward said sternly. “Show respect for your elders. Both of us.”

  His daughter sat mutinously silent while Edward poured her some more tea, although her eyes flashed her anger. He refilled his wine glass and Rona’s. Then he spoke.

  “Father Goggin can give you some reassurance about the spiritual aspects of relationships after one partner has passed on. Speak to him about your concerns. I expect to hear no more nonsense from you about how I choose to live my life.”

  Celia muttered something caustic under her breath. “What did you say?” Edward demanded.

  “I said, I’m not going to make nice to your Asian whore.”

  Rona raised an eyebrow at the ethnic slur. It was useless to demand an apology or sink to the level of fighting back. She was in professor mode when she said, “You’re out of line. You should leave now.”

  “That would probably be best, dear,” Edward endorsed heavily.

  Clearly indignant because her father sided with Rona, Celia eyed her cup of tea. She looked as if she was considering tossing its contents at her rival.

  Rona couldn’t resist a piece of advice. “I wouldn’t recommend throwing a tantrum. A well-known gossip columnist is sitting three tables away and she’d love to write about your lack of self-control on Page Six tomorrow.”

  Showing the typical Thorsen fear of gossip, Celia’s eyes went wild. A second later, she stood and left without another word, although a dark frown covered her face.

  Rona drank some of her ice water. Edward bolted his wine. After a couple of minutes, Rona began to laugh quietly. “That went well,” she said with irony intended.

  Edward sighed. “I’m sorry she insulted you. I wish you hadn’t used the word stepmother. That’s what set her off.”

  “I was merely making a point, not promoting myself for the position.” She was lying, of course.

  “You gave her a big shock. It’s bad enough I’m dating, but the idea that I might be serious was too much for her.”

  “Evidently it’s too much for you, too,” she retorted.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Rona.”

  “Then what do you mean?” she asked, exasperated. “What do you want from this relationship? We’ve been seeing each other for weeks now.”

  “I need to think,” he said, looking unhappy to be pressed.

  She snorted. “Right, okay. I’m out of here. Call me when you figure out what you want. Then maybe we can discuss what I want.”

  ***

  Bev was not having a good day. She’d had to go shopping for some personal stuff, but it was hot and nasty out. By the time she reached the apartment, she was dripping with sweat and ready to collapse. Carrying everything was exhausting. She’d forgotten her favorite shampoo. Back home, she could have driven to the store in air-conditioned comfort and put everything in a shopping cart she could wheel around.

  Everything was so much simpler in the suburbs. She was sick of being trapped in the city. True, it was hot as hell in Boca in the summer, but her whole house had AC, not just dinky room units. Back home, she wouldn’t have to go outside even to go shopping. She could get into her car in her garage and go to the drive-thru pharmacy and ask the girl to get her what she wanted. The girl would do it, too. People were more obliging in the suburbs. Here in Manhattan, they thought surly was the only way to live. Damn that Todd.

  Rona wasn’t answering her phone. Probably shtupping Edward again. Susan was out on the Island, definitely shtupping Mikey by now, damn her. She’d better not hurt him. How could she not? She was married, for chrissake.

  Bev wouldn’t mind doing some shtupping herself. She had cut Todd off when the whole drama happened. She liked regular sex. She was still attractive, although a bit of lipo around her belly wouldn’t be amiss. Not that Todd ever seemed critical. He liked to screw, and they had plenty of fun in the bedroom. So why couldn’t he get his head out of his ass and end this mess?

  ***

  Susan and Michael spent Saturday in bed, ordering room service and locking the door against other intrusions. She couldn’t remember even looking out the window. She might have. She did eventually have a bath. Michael helped. It took a long time. They were lucky they didn’t cause a flood on the floor below.

  In the evening, they walked by the lake. They had to cut their fresh air experience short when she absolutely refused to make love against a tree. “Spoilsport,” Michael complained. She plodded determinedly back to the inn, listening without comment to his string of pretend complaints. Then, she yanked him into their suite and had him up against the door. Tigress, indeed. She had discovered a fierce hunger in herself that she insisted on trying to satiate all night long.

  Sunday dawned, and with it, the knowledge that they had to return to the city. They tried to pretend it wasn’t the beginning of a reckoning.

  “There’s still time to go to the Bayard Cutting Arboretum,” Michael offered, as they consumed an enormous breakfast. They wore hotel robes, and sat at a table in their sitting room. A room they’d hardly visited the day before. “It could be a problem.”

  “Why?” She looked up con
tentedly from a homemade biscuit, the specialty of the inn. He was perfect. Absolutely perfect. His dark hair gleamed in the sunshine.

  “When we make love on the lawn, we’d frighten the geese.”

  “Funny,” she said. “I assume we’d be arrested long before we get there. For steering the car to the side of the road and making it rock.”

  He smiled. “You’re a woman after my own heart.”

  “Am I?” Her smile turned suddenly lopsided. “But I can’t take it.”

  He leaned forward, putting a finger to her lips to silence her. “We’ve got hours before we need to think about the future. Let’s enjoy today.”

  They continued their idyll in the bedroom until they could no longer postpone the end of the weekend.

  Then it truly was over, they were checked out of the inn and driving back with the crowds toward the city. She sat silent as the miles went by, unable to say what was in her heart because she knew she had no right to say it. She’d been very selfish with Michael. She wasn’t going to kid herself and pretend that he had seduced her or used her. It was quite the reverse. She was not free to forge a permanent relationship.

  Some other woman could have let the relationship stay on the surface, and had sex, and gone back to Ohio with her heart whole, leaving his intact, too. She wasn’t that woman. She had insisted on revealing her emotional history. Michael had dared to show her that he was a real man who had suffered hurt, too. Who continued to struggle with painful holdovers from the past. That should have been a clear warning to her not to hurt him, but still she had indulged herself and wallowed in a thrilling sexual relationship with him, uncaring whether she hurt him in the process or not. Her friends were right to warn her she was in over her head. She had paid no attention to the warnings.

  “Move in with me,” Michael said, out of nowhere.

  She gasped in shock. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not? We belong together.”

  “I—I, well…” Instinctively, her reaction was that it would be too blatant an admission of their relationship. What did that say about how slippery was her sense of morality? She had allowed herself a weekend in bed with this man as if she was a free woman. Now she was back to feeling that she was still married and shouldn’t openly live with him. That it wasn’t right. Hypocrite.

  “You could have the guest suite as your own domain. I’m not some cave man. Although I do want to drag you back to my lair.” As usual, there was a smile in his voice.

  “We can still see each other,” she objected.

  “I want more than a few hours here and there. I want you to be mine. I want us to fight over the sink in the morning and try every sexual position known to man in bed each night.”

  She took an unsteady breath, fighting the seductive picture he had painted with his passionate words. It sounded wonderful. It would even solve her roommate problem, but she couldn’t openly be Michael’s live-in lover.

  She wanted to say more. It wasn’t fair to Michael when he had to split his attention between her and the traffic. “Is there anywhere we could stop and talk for a while?”

  Michael obligingly steered the car to a lane change and took them off the Long Island Expressway. They came up to street level in a neighborhood in Queens. He found a diner and parked the car.

  It was busy on a Sunday afternoon, and the smell of French fries was strong. After they’d ordered some food, he took her hands in his across the Formica table. “Don’t deny what we’ve found.”

  “I’m not.”

  His eyes burned intensely. “I can’t go back to merely dating. We should live together.”

  “Years ago, we used to call living together ‘playing house,’” she sighed. “I’m already doing that, don’t you see? I’ve furnished an apartment and even taken on a roommate, and I have another almost-roommate living in the same building. I’ve temporarily recreated a college dorm situation or something out of one of the chick lit tales Coquette publishes in its Pink Ladies line. Granted, with unexpected help from my friends. Yes, even Bev,” she said sadly. “I’ve gone back in time, and by a strange coincidence, both my roomies and I are at dramatic decision points in our lives. Just like when we were young and came to Manhattan to pursue our futures.”

  “You were looking for Mr. Right,” he said. He played with her fingers gently, looking at the ring she was wearing instead of her wedding set that Rick had given her so many years ago. “You didn’t find him then.”

  Michael kissed her fingertips, looking at her with his heart in his eyes. “I’m your Mr. Right. The man you were meant to be with the rest of your life. I’m the one.”

  She pulled her hands from his and covered her trembling lips as tears filled her eyes. She struggled with the mixed emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. It was agony to know that he was right but she couldn’t have him.

  “Oh, Michael. I can’t. You have brought my fairy tale to life. You’re the handsome prince who has woken me from a lifetime of not living up to my sexual potential. I thank you so much for that.”

  “One weekend was enough for you?” he said, showing bitterness at what seemed like a goodbye speech from her. “When are you planning to live an authentic life? Never?”

  She had to explain, stop beating around the bush. Tell Michael why she couldn’t openly luxuriate in the newness of their love. Explain the extent of her obligation. Finally, she blurted it out.

  “I can’t take up with another man openly until I end my relationship with Rick. It would humiliate him, and he doesn’t deserve that.”

  “I thought you said he was unfaithful to you?”

  “Just the one time.”

  “Which you say made you fall apart all over again.”

  She nodded.

  “Then you don’t owe the bastard anything,” he said curtly.

  She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Despite everything, he’s my husband, and I owe him some loyalty and respect. He’s a good man.”

  “What about you and me?”

  “I—I can’t answer that now,” she said sadly.

  She couldn’t be pushed any further. Michael looked frustrated. He pulled some money out of his wallet. “I’ll take you to your apartment.”

  She sat back, relieved. Then he added, firmly, “You are spending every evening with me. I’ll send you home in a cab each midnight if you insist.”

  She smiled tentatively and tried to help the conversation to go to a lighter emotional plane. “Maybe in a few weeks, we’ll want to go see another opera or something.”

  “Maybe not,” he said, dangerously. He looked at her as if he wanted to swallow her up right there.

  Her own desire rose to meet his. They both were desperate to make love again. Right now. Impossible.

  They pushed aside their meal, whatever it was, paid the bill, and went back to the car.

  “I should have rented a van. With curtains,” he said in frustration as they approached the sedan.

  “Did you have one as a teenager?”

  “No, but that first girlfriend, the older one, did. She’d pick me up at school and we’d park and do it in the back of the van. Then she’d take me home so I had time to do my homework before my parents got home.” Michael looked at the rental car with disgust.

  “I’m sorry I’m too prim and proper for such shenanigans,” she said, and she meant it. “I did consider the ladies room back at the diner, but it was too busy there. I didn’t think we’d have time. Someone would have been banging on the door.”

  “Oh, damn. Don’t say that,” he said tensely, still eyeing the car. “That makes it worse.”

  She touched his shoulder. When he turned, she pulled him close, and kissed him deeply. He kissed her back until both of them couldn’t bear it anymore.

  “Get in the car,” he ground out. “Please.”

  “Michael, we can’t,” she said, anxiously.

  “We won’t,” he replied. She got in. He threw himself in the driver’s seat and gunned th
e car in a manner worthy of a Brooklyn teenager. Then he took a deep breath and flashed her a tense smile. “Would you consider a detour to visit my co-op for a couple of hours?”

  “Yes,” she replied baldly, breathing deeply herself.

  ***

  Rona and Louis were talking on the phone as she eyed the street in front of her building. “Susan’s still not back from her dirty weekend with Michael. She shouldn’t be doing this, but I couldn’t stop her.”

  “There speaks the voice of experience.”

  “That’s exactly my point, Lou. I’ve been there, done that. What’s she going to do at the end of the summer? Her heart will be broken, and so will his. This Michael is an old friend of Bev’s. I’ve met him a couple of times over the years. He’s a good guy.”

  “That’s a problem why?”

  “Because a good guy is capable of inspiring a good girl like Susan to fall in love with him.”

  “Still don’t see the problem.”

  “Look, at the end of the summer, she’s going back to Ohio. I know her. Getting involved with a man is setting herself up to be miserable again. She’s hardly recovered from Kyle.”

  “It could just be sex.”

  “No, she’s not the type. She’d have to convince herself she cared deeply about a man before she had sex with him.”

  “Unlike you.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Think Susan would want to divorce her husband to marry this friend of Bev’s?”

  “Interesting question.” She paused to pour herself some more sparkling water. Wine didn’t taste good to her anymore. “I wouldn’t go that far. She’s never suggested that her split from Rick is permanent.”