Instant Love: Fiction

by Jami Attenberg

  “Hon? Can you top this off?” Joey pointed to his coffee mug one morning. “And can you take your top off while you’re at it?” He said it in this very controlled voice, as if he were as entitled to nudity as he was to coffee. And then he followed it with one of his gigantic smiles and a slow, easy wink. Maggie looked into his eyes and held the look.

  His tablemate, a vice president at his father’s gigantic frozen-food corporation, almost did a spit take with his water, and then started laughing heartily. “Aw, leave her alone, Joey. Don’t you know better than to mess with the girl holding the hot coffee?”

  Maggie could feel every nerve ending in her body cutting into her skin.

  “Anytime, Mr. Pollack.”

  Joey clucked his tongue and shook his head. Maggie imagined the top of his head was swelling and turning pink.

  “Just give me some more coffee, all right, kid?”

  Maggie poured his coffee, and walked back to the wait station. She filled the saltshakers. She bit at her thumbnail. She stood, she stewed, she waited. As tee times grew closer, a wave of heads checked their watches and then popped their heads up and made eye contact with Maggie. Then they drew little check marks in the air with their hands, or scribbled an imaginary bill on their palms, or mouthed the word “check” and raised their eyebrows. Maggie floated across the room, delivering bills to all the husbands and fathers who had come to her for sustenance. Three dollars, five dollars, ten. It didn’t matter how much, there would be no cash exchanging hands, just a signature, an agreement to cover their financial responsibility. It almost made it feel like the meal was imaginary.

  In the center of the room, Joey and his tablemate jawed some more, then slugged the rest of their coffee. Joey motioned for the check. His friend rose and left the table, headed for the men’s room in the front lobby.

  “You’re being a little saucy today, aren’t you?” said Joey, as Maggie flipped through her stack of checks.

  “You’re a little saucy every day,” she replied. She found his check, slapped it on the table, held it there with her fingertips. “Aren’t I allowed to play, too?” She tasted the tang of bile coming up from her stomach to her throat; flirting with him was literally making her sick.

  “You can play, you can play,” he said. He paused, then said, “See you out there,” to another member as he walked past and nodded at him. “What time you done here?”

  Deep breath. “Ten,” she said.

  “You want to go for a drive?”

  Never get in a stranger’s car. Was he a stranger?

  “Sure.”

  At the end of her shift, Eugene caught her at the time clock.

  “Maggie Stoner, in the office, please,” he said.

  His suit was light brown and his tie was bright bloodred and had little horses on it. All she could do was look at the tie. That tie sucked.

  “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie.” He tapped his fingers on his desk. “How do I say this? While I have heard only good feedback from the members as of late, I’m concerned you might be developing inappropriate feelings or relationships with some of them. I watched you today, and it was like you were almost leering at them or something. And I don’t know what you were talking to Mr. Pollack about for so long, but he’s a married man, with children. We don’t want people talking, dear.”

  Maggie sat quietly. How much she wanted to slice that tie right off his neck and stuff it in his mouth.

  “Eugene.” She stopped herself. “Eugene.” She laughed. “Eugene. I really hate your stupid fucking tie.”

  And then she got up and walked out the door. She had only a little time to get ready for her date.

  IT’S BECAUSE I said we should start thinking about having children, isn’t it? That’s why you’re telling me this story, says Robert.

  Yes, Maggie thinks. Why would I want to bring children into this world?

  No, of course not, she says.

  She twists the ring, the gigantic diamond ring, around her finger, loosens it from her flesh. Underneath is a white band of skin, one freckle in the center of it. A marker. You are here.

  MAGGIE WORE so much baby pink lipstick it was all she could smell, waxy and sweet. She had rubbed some of it into her cheeks, too. Her hair was combed straight, the barrettes securely fastened. The razors were in her pocket. She had taken one out, and rubbed her finger against it as she walked through the parking lot, searching for Joey Pollack Jr. in a sea of BMWs.

  Finally, in the last aisle, in the last spot, she saw him, snug in his front seat. He was wearing aviator sunglasses. He smiled when he saw her, unlocked the door, motioned for her to open it. When she did, a blast of air-conditioning pushed against her and a rash of goose pimples flooded her arm. A Phil Collins song was playing loudly; a ballad about star-crossed lovers, sung with earnestness. The car smelled like smoke. She didn’t know he was a smoker. No, it wasn’t cigarette smoke, it was too sweet for that. It was pot. Maggie took a big inhale, but felt nothing.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’s it hanging, little lady?”

  “Are you high?” she said.

  “Why? You want some?”

  “I was just wondering.” She leaned forward, shoved her hands in her pocket, felt for the razor, stretched her hand down her thigh until her finger hit metal.

  “This is kind of weird,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, this is my wife’s car. Mine is in the shop.”

  Maggie squinted at him.

  “Never mind,” he said. “So what are we doing here?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I think you know.” He rubbed his hand on his crotch a few times, back and forth, until he was hard, the fabric of his pants stretching up toward the dashboard. “I want you to suck it.”

  “Let me see it.”

  He reached for his fly, unzipped it, and unfolded his penis. It was thick and dark, except for the bell-shaped tip, which was pink. “Come on, kiss it.”

  “Show me all of it.”

  He puffed up his chest, sucked in his stomach, wrestled with his belt. The sound of metal on metal. Then he popped open the button of his golf pants, hoisted himself up slightly, and struggled with his pants until they were down almost to his knees, the fabric bunched up underneath his thighs on the car seat.

  His balls are so hairy, thought Maggie.

  I’m playing for keeps, sang Phil Collins.

  Hand in pocket, hand on blade, head to thighs, lips to thighs. I’m in too deep, he sings. Mouth bites thigh, mouth and head move up together, mouth surrounds him, takes it in.

  “That’s right, take it all in,” says Joey.

  Hand in pocket, hand on blade. A full mouth. Hand out of pocket, hand in air, hand on thigh. Flick finger on edge. Flick, flick, flick.

  Then slash, not too deep, don’t hurt him, just let him know, you’re there.

  Ding-dong, I’m here.

  At first he didn’t know he was bleeding, but then, oh boy, he knew.

  “What the fuck?”

  He pushed her head, and she hit the steering wheel. She pulled up straight, wiped her mouth, and then bolted out of the car, away, away, run away toward home, do it fast, do it now. She saw the blood for only a moment, a huge swipe of it, like someone had painted it on his thigh.

  She made it home, running, a running waitress, she was certain she was a punch line to a joke. Through the front door, past the mirror in the foyer, and then she stopped. There was blood on her cheek. It looked kind of cool, but she wiped it off. Into the kitchen, where her father sat at the kitchen table, coffee cup to his right, New York Times arts section spread before him, the op-ed section waiting in reserve.

  “Dad.” She sat down next to him and began to weep.

  “What’s going on? Calm down, calm down.” He put his hand on her shoulder and began to rub it.

  “I think I’m going a little insane this summer. I’m being fucked up. I’m sorry.”

  He took her into his arms. “Shh,” he said
. “It’s going to be OK. If there’s anything I can handle, it’s this.” He smiled, he hugged her. His poor, pretty, crazy daughter. He was going to make everything better.

  IT WAS ACTUALLY the only time he was ever cool to me in my entire life, she says. He got me a plane ticket to Europe and gave me a bunch of money. I went and found Holly and spent the rest of the summer backpacking with her.

  Yes, a father helping his fugitive daughter flee from justice, says Robert; his tone ripens quickly to condescending. Very cool.

  He didn’t know I was fleeing. No one ever came looking for me. He just thought I was freaking out. And then he threw some cash at me to make it go away, and you know what? That really does work. You should know that by now.

  You’re mean, says Robert.

  Only sometimes, says Maggie. And only a little part of me.

  Let me introduce you, she thinks. Here I am.

  There are three things you need to know about Kong,” Bill told Christina. “And if you follow them, everything should work out perfectly. First, don’t ever look him in the eye, at least not now. He’ll view it as a challenge. Wait till you get to know him first. It’ll take a while, probably a month. But in the meantime: no eye contact. Second, don’t touch him. He really doesn’t like affection. Occasionally I’ll give him a nice pat on the back, but that’s me, and I’m the leader around here. He might nip at you or growl, so just keep your distance for the time being. And third, don’t ever show fear to him, not for a second. Because the minute you do that, he knows he’s won, and he’ll bully you for the rest of the summer.”

  Christina eyed Kong as he was held by Bill, who while nearing sixty, was still fit enough to handle a 150-pound dog. A slight growl hovered in the dog’s throat, as if he were on the verge of releasing it into a full-force bark. From the side of his mouth a tiny strand of drool dangled, also seemingly poised for something more disastrous. Otherwise he was a beautiful dog; thick, chocolate brown fur, golden around the eyes and paws, wide paws that reminded her of a lion’s, and a determined snout. His eyes barreled deep into his head; two shiny black stones that looked like they’d be perfect for skipping.

  “Aw, he doesn’t look so bad,” said Christina, and she reached her hand out to pet his head. Kong lunged forward, and Bill pulled back on his collar, his fingers digging into his palm tightly.

  “Christina, please! You have to listen to what I’m saying. Kong is not to be toyed with. Got it?” He looked down, pissed off, and then up again with a smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you, dear. I’m sorry. I just want this to be perfect for you.”

  “No, I got it. I got it. Don’t look, don’t touch, don’t show fear.”

  “Oh, and if you can talk to him sometimes in a high, feminine voice?” Bill shifted his rich, deep voice into an imitation of an excited teen girl. “He likes that, I think. Don’t you, Kong?”

  Kong’s tongue dropped from his mouth, and his ears perked.

  “I can like, totally try,” said Christina, imitating one of her Introduction to Comp Lit students from first semester, a young woman who always greeted her friends with an urgency and enthusiasm one usually reserved for wedding announcements or job promotions, not compliments on the color of a new blouse.

  Kong barked at her, and Bill soothed him again.

  “You know what? Don’t do the high-pitched voice. Maybe he doesn’t like it on you.”

  “No high-pitched voice. Check.” Christina clenched the handle of her purse. I could make a run for it now, she thought. My suitcase is still in the car, and my backpack is right by the front door.

  Bill pulled the dog out of the front room and onto the patio, next to a clear, chemically treated, full-length pool. He locked the sliding door that separated the patio and the front room, and mumbled, “You have to lock it or he breaks in.

  “It’s going to be fine, I promise. This is going to be just what you need.” He put his hand to her face, ran his tan, spotted hand along her jawline, then up to her ear. He squeezed her lobe with his thumb and forefinger. “Allow me to give you what you need,” he said.

  As Christina leaned forward to embrace Bill, Kong hurled himself at the sliding door, savage noises splitting from his throat. He sounds like a monster, she thought, and held Bill even tighter, then looked around him at Kong and smirked.

  THE DAY AFTER she started dating Bill Stoner—and everyone knew exactly when it started; they showed up at the monthly faculty reading series together, and Christina was wearing lipstick—people started treating her differently. She didn’t mind it one bit. She didn’t care if people thought she was sleeping with him to secure a position in the department (She and Bill had never once talked about her career. They had never once talked about her future at the university. They discussed only her thesis, a study of transcendentalism in the books of Louisa May Alcott. Bill was a huge Emerson fan and collected first editions of his books). Nor did she care if they thought she was seeing him because he was filthy rich from his books. (The first was still his most successful, a noisy novel called Hanover’s Last Stand, about a harried husband removed from the life of his children by a controlling wife. He eventually stands up for himself and his independence as a man and takes his children with him on a wild cross-country ride, at the end of which he asks the children to choose between him and his wife. “Do you want a simple or complex life?” he said. “Have I not taught you to roar?” It became wildly successful after its embrace by the men’s movement in the ’80s. An only slightly more politically correct film version was made of it, where the wife joins them at the end of the trip, and she and the children embrace in the mountains as the sun sets behind them. The eye contact between the husband and the wife tells the viewer that there will not have to be a decision. They can work together for the sake of the children. Nick Nolte got an Academy-Award nomination for best actor, and there was also a nod for best adaptation. Christina saw it once in a feminist film-theory class during her undergrad days. Several of her classmates hurled objects—pens, wadded-up paper, and a tampon—at the video monitor as the credits rolled. Christina was embarrassed to wipe away a few tears at the end of the film, and kept her head down as she walked out of class.) And she didn’t care if they thought she was impressed with his fame (a frequent talk-show guest, Bill reportedly played golf with Charlie Rose whenever he was in town).

  She didn’t care because she didn’t think she was doing anything wrong. After so many years in academia, four years of undergrad, a misdirected master’s in philosophy, four years of teaching at a private high school (sullen rich kids on better drugs than she’d had at their age), one year of culinary school, and then this seemingly endless foray into a Ph.D. program in English, she’d had enough crushes on older teachers—all unrequited for a variety of reasons, but mostly related to a long-term, long-distance boyfriend and a brief and highly unflattering lesbian relationship that haunted her through her early postgraduate years—to realize when she’d finally hit the fantasy jackpot. He could have been poor, untenured, and working at a small state school, but as long as he had wisdom and passion about his work, she’d be smitten, and Bill was well known as a top lecturer and an inspirational advisor. Rumor was, he had been thanked in the foreword of more academic books than anyone else in the history of the state of California. He’s the grand prize, she thought.

  So she ignored the comments of her colleagues, at the weekly gathering of the PhDrinking Club (Apparently even in our thirties we still need a club as an excuse to drink, she thought, but she went anyway), little nudges when they complained about tenured professors, for example, followed by a dramatic hand clamp on the mouth and someone whispering, “This isn’t going to get back to Stoner, is it?” Her best friend at the school, Mandy, an associate professor in linguistics, had started adding the phrase “between you and me” as a preface to most of their conversations. Christina never knew how to respond, so she didn’t bother. Sometimes she told him what other people said, the gossip, the criticism, because she wante
d someone to share it with, and as the man in her life, he was the best choice.

  And they had become immediately close; so many things about him soothed her: his low, warming voice, his tan skin, lined in ways that made him seem more interesting, the way he rubbed one shoulder when he had his arm around her, reassuring her that this was exactly where he wanted to be. It was as if he had no intention of ever letting her go, and it was like that right from the beginning. I’m his prize, too, she thought. So even though they had been dating only a few months, how could she resist when he invited her to his home up north for the summer? It was rash, certainly, and yet she said yes before she had the time to say no, a fact she had considered daily since she had agreed to go. But then she would think about having the time and space to work on her thesis and to do yoga, plus there was land, so much land he promised, a vineyard, a swimming pool, a hot tub (this was said with raised eyebrows because sometimes he was a little dirty), fresh air, trees, clear skies, dry hot days and cool nights, so many stars you wouldn’t believe, and, of course, lots of wildlife, and there could be only one answer.

  “I’VE PICKED OUT two rooms from which you can choose,” said Bill. They entered down a long, dim hallway, lit only by a skylight that showed a bright blue sky and one slender branch of a fir tree across the corner of it. There were four doors in the hallway, two on each side. “Now I know it’s going to be a tough choice.” He started laughing, the only noise in the silent house. He laughed so hard, he had to stop walking, and he leaned against the wall for a moment. Then he wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I find it so amusing. It’s not.” He pointed to the first door.