The Forever Year

by Lou Aronica

  “No, she didn’t mention it.”

  “Turns out that Gruenbach’s acquisition of Lynch is going through just as he suspected. It also appears that his future with the corporation is just as he suspected.”

  “Oh, that’s terrible for him and Denise.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how they’re going to get by on Denise’s high six-figures alone. That’s not the point, anyway, because he’s actually putting a consortium together to start a new magazine.”

  “Does he know enough about the magazine business to do that?”

  “He doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know, but he’s got access to the money and some bizarre notion that this is his next big career move.”

  “So was he calling you to come on board?” Mickey liked the idea of his son and his son-in-law working together.

  “No, thank God. Could you imagine that? That’s all I’d need is Denise having control of my income. No, he was calling to get my opinion about editors they should chase for their management team. I was actually a little flattered, if you want to know the truth. Not only did he ask, but it sounded like he was taking notes.”

  Mickey was pleased to hear the pride in Jesse’s voice. Being the youngest in the family had to be a challenge for Jesse, especially in a family of overachievers, and it had to make him feel good to be consulted as an expert.

  “So if he hires one of these guys, do you get a finder’s fee?” Mickey said.

  Jesse looked over at him and smiled. “I like the way you think, Dad. Wanna negotiate that for me?”

  Mickey drew up his hands. “Not me. Brad’s a barracuda.”

  Jesse reached over and patted him on the leg. “Ah, come on, Dad. You could kick his ass.”

  Mickey laughed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Jesse so at ease.

  They were going south on the Turnpike, having just passed the exit for Newark Airport. Mickey still had no idea where they were going, and it was obvious that Jesse didn’t either. After their conversation about Brad, Jesse had stopped talking and seemed intent on driving. Maybe he was wondering if they could get to Miami and back by dinnertime after all.

  Mickey had planned on telling Jesse the next part of his story with Gina when his son got back from California. When Jesse asked him to go for a drive, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Of course, he then had to find a way to get a word in edgewise. The chance finally seemed to have arrived.

  “People didn’t just jump into bed back then,” he started. Jesse looked over at him and it appeared that he wasn’t entirely sure what Mickey was talking about. But then another glance indicated that he knew where Mickey was going.

  Mickey continued. “I didn’t sleep with your mother until our wedding night. But Gina, God, right from that first kiss there was something burning up between us.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  It had been the way it was every night since that first kiss. Saturday’s date led to Sunday’s, which led to Tuesday’s and then Thursday’s. The only night they hadn’t seen each other since then was the one Tuesday when Mickey had a business dinner he couldn’t avoid. On every night there was the conversation and the playfulness that existed from the moment they’d met, but now there was something else there as well, an almost magnetic physical connection. They were always touching when out in public, holding hands, sneaking kisses, nuzzling. And on Gina’s doorstep, their goodnight kisses were longer, more passionate. The night before, concerned about appearances in view of a doorman she’d known since she was in her early teens, Gina had moved them ridiculously behind a stand of trees. Mickey laughed about it, but the comedy of the situation didn’t alter his mood.

  And then on this night, while they ate pasta and sipped Chianti at a restaurant that they’d visited twice before, Mickey could barely taste his meal or follow the conversation. All he knew was that Gina’s leg rested next to his in their booth, that her arm brushed lightly against his, that her head leaned against his shoulder regularly. Mickey wanted to reach his arm around her to cradle her against his chest, and though propriety prevented it, nothing could stop his imagination.

  “You’re not eating much,” she said during a still moment.

  Mickey looked at his plate and noticed that it was nearly half full. Gina’s looked much the same.

  “You aren’t either.”

  “The portions are so big here.”

  Mickey reached for Gina’s hand and brought it to his lips. “We should probably leave soon anyway or we’ll miss our movie.”

  Gina moved their hands to her cheek. “I think it might be nice to go somewhere quieter instead.”

  Mickey appreciated the suggestion. He had no desire to have his attention diverted by a film.

  “We could go to the Waldorf for a drink,” he said.

  Gina rubbed his hand against her cheek and then kissed it. “Quieter than that,” she said in a whisper.

  Mickey looked into her eyes, not entirely sure what she was saying. He didn’t care where they went, as long as he could continue to touch her.

  “I still haven’t seen where you live, Mickey,” she said softly, almost shyly.

  “It’s very quiet there,” he said. He could feel his mouth going dry.

  They said nothing, not a single word, on the cab ride to his apartment. A couple of times, Gina looked at him and seemed about to say something, but then rested her head back on his shoulder and massaged his hand.

  When they got inside his apartment, Mickey took Gina’s sweater and placed it on a chair. While he’d been fantasizing this moment for the past couple of weeks, he now found himself very nervous.

  “Can I get you something?” he said.

  Gina smiled a smile that he knew he would remember the rest of his life. It said so many things at once. It said she considered their life together to be an adventure. It said that Mickey meant more to her than she ever could have imagined. It said that she was at least as nervous as he was. And while she was smiling, she walked up to him and reached a hand toward his cheek.

  “Just this.” She kissed him more deeply than she had ever kissed him before.

  If Mickey had swooned from some of Gina’s previous kisses, this time he felt positively electrified. He pulled Gina to him, pressing their bodies as close as possible. He kissed her lips, her cheek, her chin, and her neck. Concerned that he might be moving too quickly, he slowed for a moment, looking into her eyes.

  “I can’t believe how much I want you,” she said.

  Mickey let go of the reins on his desire. Kissing her passionately, he worked loose the buttons on her blouse, the zipper on the back of her skirt. Somehow, the buttons of his own shirt had been undone, though he hadn’t noticed Gina doing this, so intent was he on revealing her. They made their way to the couch, still fervently undressing each other. They lay down, and Mickey hungrily tasted her shoulders, her arms, her stomach. At last, he reached for the back of her bra and found the clasp. Releasing it, he allowed his lips to lower the straps and then to work down the material covering her breasts.

  He pulled back to remove the bra, and he looked down at Gina in amazement, realizing that she seemed more beautiful from one moment to the next. A voice inside of him told him to slow down, to savor what was happening between them. Yes, this desire had been building since their very first conversation. No, he had never felt more enflamed in his life. But this was a moment to cherish, to memorize in the minutest detail.

  At that moment, he lowered himself to her slowly, kissing her tenderly.

  “You are the most remarkable person I’ve ever met,” he said.

  She kissed him and pulled herself tightly against him. “We’re remarkable together.”

  From that point forward, everything slowed, as though both understood that they should draw every bit of sensation from this encounter. Mickey softly moved his lips down Gina’s torso, wanting to leave no inch of her un-kissed. She kneaded the muscles of his shoulders, threaded her fingers through the hairs on his chest. She turned him o
ver to unbuckle his belt and remove his pants and Mickey felt not exposed, but released.

  For many minutes after that, they held each other tight, their naked legs exploring each other, kissing ever more deeply. Eventually, Mickey pulled himself up and slowly, almost tentatively, removed Gina’s panties. He looked up at her and she smiled at him again. It was a smile that spoke many of the same words as before, but also confirmed that what they were doing was unimaginably right.

  The next several minutes were a blur of sensation for Mickey. Their bodies moved together, and Mickey reveled in the pleasure. There was nothing in his experience to match what he was feeling with Gina right now. The physical excitement combined with the vision of the woman who thrilled his emotions in unprecedented ways overwhelmed him. He wanted to stay in this moment forever and knew, in some very real ways, that he always would.

  After their passion crested, they lay together for a long while without speaking. Silences like these had become welcome interludes over the past weeks. Saying nothing and everything at once. At last, Gina turned to kiss him and then looked back up at the ceiling.

  “We’ve just touched eternity,” she said.

  ~~~~~~~~

  “It was the same way every time,” Mickey said to Jesse. “Every single time.”

  Jesse wasn’t sure that there was anything he could possibly say. He was moved by the depth of emotion in his father’s voice as he spoke, but he also knew that nearly any response would seem trivial.

  He wondered if his father would say anything more about Gina today, but he knew from experience that the look on his father’s face meant that he wouldn’t be talking about it again for a while. For the hundredth time, Jesse wished he could know everything about this mystery from his father’s past.

  Mickey reached over and turned on the stereo, and they continued to drive.

  Chapter Twenty

  The night after I returned from California, my father did in fact do the dishes. I was still convinced that he would drop the façade the first night that Marina didn’t eat with us, but I figured there was no reason to examine this gift horse too carefully. During the time he’d lived with me, we’d become accustomed to turning on the television after dinner. Having spent the day reading and writing, I was ready to rest my mind and he seemed willing to watch just about anything. But on this night, once he finished putting the dishes away, he came into the living room with a pack of playing cards.

  “Anyone for a little poker?” he said. Marina sat up on the couch.

  I tilted my head toward him. “A little poker?”

  “Yeah,” he said, looking over at Marina. “What else are we gonna do? Watch television? There’s nothing good on until 9:00 anyway, right, Marina?”

  I glanced at Marina, who was already rising and walking toward the dining room table.

  “I’m a much better poker player than I am a checkers player,” she said to him.

  “Well, that wouldn’t be difficult. I hope you’re better at poker than you are at Monopoly, too.”

  “One bad roll, Mickey,” Marina said, pointing her finger at him in mock recrimination. “One bad roll.”

  “Yeah, losers always have excuses,” he said through a grin.

  I watched this exchange as though we had in fact turned the television on after dinner. When had my house been moved to a fifties sitcom neighborhood? When it became clear that my father’s invitation had not been a suggestion but an announcement of the next item on the agenda – and that Marina had clearly seen the agenda ahead of time – I got up to join them.

  My father played with relish, boasting about his winnings and narrating our performances as though ESPN had hired him for the event. I had never been one for gambling, but since we were using plastic chips with no actual monetary value, I played with abandon. I got my father to fold when I had nothing more than a pair of fours in my hand, and when I pulled an inside straight to beat Marina’s three-of-a-kind, she actually threw her cards at me. My father considered this to be the highest form of entertainment.

  Sometime after nine, we settled back down on the couch in the den. HBO was showing “American Beauty,” which fascinated my father, even as he denigrated its values. I know he was sharp enough to identify the irony in the movie, and I couldn’t help but wonder if by criticizing it he was trying to send me a message that I wasn’t understanding.

  A little after ten, Marina leaned over to kiss me on the temple and said, “I really should get to bed.” I was so pleased with her for saying this. My suggesting it would have revealed my true intentions. Her suggesting it would be interpreted by my father as being responsible.

  After hearing his story about Gina earlier in the day, it was probably time to stop being concerned about what my father might think about my sleeping with Marina under his nose. While one doesn’t necessarily want to consider the image of one’s parents in bed with each other, the image of the young Mickey Sienna (whom I continued to regard as a character very different from my father in any case) making love to the mysterious Gina was strangely alluring. That afternoon, I’d called Marina from the road to suggest that she plan on spending the night.

  “I guess I’m going to have to go out to buy a bunch of board games to keep my father entertained in the evenings,” I said as we brushed our teeth. “What would you suggest, Stratego, Life, Candy Land?”

  “It was fun playing cards with him tonight.”

  “It was; you’re right. It’s just been a surprising day.”

  She put her toothbrush away and kissed me. “Think we can make it a surprising night?”

  “I’ve been thinking about little else since 6:30 this morning.”

  I wrapped my arms around Marina and we slowly made our way from the bathroom to the bed.

  Though my time away from her had made me hungrier for her than I ever remembered being, there was nothing rushed or hurried about our lovemaking. I had always taken tremendous pleasure in undressing her, in luxuriating over the exploration of each newly exposed patch of skin. I knew all of her “secret places,” spots that generated heightened pleasure, carnal or otherwise, and she decidedly knew all of mine. While my senses thrummed in anticipation of a release that had been building for more than a week, I had no desire to reach that release anytime soon.

  I don’t know how much of this was inspired by the story my father had told me that morning or by my repeating it to Marina that afternoon. There had always been this sense between us that making love was at once casual and eventful. But on this night, so many things combined. Our having missed each other while I was away. Our being primed by another’s tale of passion. My still being buzzed by my accomplishments in California and endlessly grateful to Marina for allowing me that opportunity. Even the slight naughtiness of doing this while my father was watching a movie nearby. It charged the room. It made each kiss seem just a little softer, each caress tingle just a little more. And when we finally did head toward that release, it seemed that we were starting from a different place than we usually did.

  We didn’t speak for several minutes afterward. Typically, one of us says something romantic or affectionate almost immediately, but this seemed both unnecessary and inappropriate. Having our bodies together, feeling the breaths that each of us took, was enough. At last, Marina propped herself up on one arm and ran her fingers softly through the hairs on my chest.

  “This one is my favorite,” she said, describing a tiny circle near my breastbone.

  “Why’s that?”

  “It goes in the opposite direction from all the other hairs on your chest, and it’s a slightly different color. Lighter. It’s your renegade hair. Did you know you had one?”

  “I can’t say that I did.”

  She kissed my chest and then kissed me on the lips.

  “You have a few things like that. There’s a tiny mole on your back that is redder than the others are. And of course there is that thing with your toenail.”

  “I have a ‘thing’ with a toenail?�
�

  “You don’t know about this? You don’t know that the toenail next to your big toe on your right foot is round when all of your other toenails are square?”

  As if to illustrate, she moved toward my foot and gave my rogue toe a kiss.

  “You have a tiny patch of smooth skin just to the left of your right knee,” I said.

  “I knew that one.”

  I sat up with her and moved behind her. “Do you know that you have a little bare spot in the hair on the back of your neck?”

  “I do?”

  I touched it lightly. “You never felt me do this before?”

  “Of course I felt you do it. I just didn’t know what you were doing.”

  I kissed the spot and then kissed her neck and shoulders, and then turned her toward me and kissed her deeply on the lips.

  “I love that spot,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said, almost a little dazedly.

  She adjusted herself so that she was reclined against my chest and we sat like that for another quiet time.

  “I love you, Jess,” she said barely above a whisper.

  It was the first time in a very long while that a woman had said that to me. It might as well have been a lifetime ago. The last time I heard it, the declaration had meaning, but I completely misunderstood its implication. The last time I heard it, while I thought it suggested the highest level of devotion, I also believed it could be infinite. Given the relationship I had with Marina and the many levels on which we connected, it was notable that we had gone this long into our affair without saying this. It wasn’t as though the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. But I thought that her reticence to say the words came from the same place as mine: that doing so would imply that we believed we could battle nearly unfathomable odds.

  I held her close to me and kissed her neck. I wanted her to know how much it meant to me to hear her say this. I wanted her to know how deeply I cared for her. I loved her. Of course I loved her. By any reasonable definition of the word, I’d been in love with Marina for some time. While I still wasn’t sure what I was saying by acknowledging it, it was important to me that she know.