See Jane Date

by Melissa Senate

  I couldn’t say a word. I could only kiss him. His hands stroked up and down my back, and then he pulled back from me again and opened the top button on my thin black cardigan. He looked up at me to see if I’d stop him. No way. He smiled, then opened the second button and kissed the little expanse of skin as he went down, button by button. I leaned my head back against the cushions and stared at the top of his dark head as he trailed kisses to the top of my stretchy black skirt. My hands were in his hair, stroking back the silky strands. And then he shot up and kissed me so hard, so passionately, I could barely breathe. He slowly took off my cardigan, his eyes never leaving the Miracle Bra. Then he trailed kisses from my stomach up to my neck. His tongue darted over my lips, inside my mouth, back over my lips.

  I felt like a pat of butter melting over toast. Timothy sat back and pulled me on top of him so that I was straddling him. His eyes were on my bra. He glanced up at me for a second, then kissed me again. His hands were on the clasp to the Miracle Bra. He couldn’t get it open.

  He laughed and looked at me. “You’d think I’d be able to open this thing after all these years. Guys have been unhooking bras since they were fourteen.”

  “Maybe I should help,” I said.

  Timothy leaned back and smiled. “Maybe you should.”

  I unsnapped the Miracle Bra, glad my 34Cs would stand on their own. The second Timothy heard the little click, he took over. His hands and mouth were everywhere.

  “So maybe we should move this party into the bedroom,” he said.

  “Maybe we should.”

  He laughed and took my hand and led me topless into his bedroom. I was glad to see a stray sock on the side of the bed; Timothy was humanized. We fell onto the bed, Timothy half on top of me. I took off his shirt; he took off my skirt. Our hands, mouths, legs, arms were all over each other. He reached a hand over to his bedside table and pulled a condom out of a little wooden box. He looked at me and I smiled, which gave him the go-ahead. I didn’t feel nervous. I felt ready. Ready to make love with Timothy Rommely, ready to give myself to him completely. I couldn’t wait to feel him inside me, filling me up, his weight and hard body pressed against me. I settled myself flat on the bed, my head nestled on his soft pillows, the top sheet turned over on my chest. And waited.

  And waited. Timothy was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing away from me. “Uh, maybe we should just kiss for a little while,” he said, sliding over to me. He lay beside me and began kissing my neck. “Hiding that hot body under there isn’t going to help.”

  Oh. Oh! Duh. You’d think I’d never had sex before. I’d been with only three other guys. My first was Max. Twenty-two was a little late to lose your virginity, but that was me, queen of the late bloomers. After losing my mom, I couldn’t imagine finding comfort in the conversation or arms of some college kid who was more interested in getting in my pants than getting in my heart. Well, actually, the truth was that I’d been afraid. Scared out of my mind. Why like a guy when it meant I might lose him? And then Max, handsome, wonderful Max, had taken the choice out of my control. I’d fallen in love. Next was Soldier of Fortune Guy. I’d slept with him because I was tired of Max being the only one. The sex hadn’t been so great with SOF Guy. He’d been too fast and too clumsy and too interested in his own orgasm. Or maybe he’d just been nervous. Back then, I’d written him off as selfish. And then there had been Gorgeous Dumb Guy. We’d met over lattes, gone on three dates—all at Starbucks—and he’d dumped me over lattes. He didn’t think we were sexually compatible. Jerk. Try we weren’t intellectually compatible!

  Timothy peeled down the top sheet and again his hands and mouth were all over me. But I could feel that there was nothing going on down there with him. Was it me? Was it him? What was it? We’d been so hot and heavy, and now nada. I usually skipped all the articles about sex in Mademoiselle and Glamour and Cosmo; I never had sex, so what was the point of reading about it? Now I wished I’d paid more attention. Was I supposed to do something? Try to turn him on? Ignore it?

  “Damn,” Timothy said, flopping onto his back next to me.

  “It’s okay,” I said, hoping that was the right thing to say.

  Timothy smiled at me, grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You sure?”

  I nodded. “Maybe it’s better not to rush it, anyway.”

  “That’s true,” Timothy said. “We do have all night.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but it was good enough for me.

  Ten minutes later, he tried again. Still nothing. And nothing ten minutes after that. Now Timothy wasn’t quite as okeydoke about it.

  “Maybe I should just take you home.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said, hoping he’d get our little private joke.

  “This really isn’t funny to me, okay?”

  Huh. Now what was I supposed to say?

  “Look, maybe I should just take you home.”

  “Timothy, it’s really no big deal.”

  “It is to me,” he said, throwing off the sheet. He handed me my skirt.

  There was nothing worse than a guy handing you your skirt with an expression like Timothy’s. I suddenly felt very naked. What the hell had happened to my perfect night? So what if we couldn’t have sex? Who cared? I just wanted Timothy.

  My arms folded over my chest, I followed Timothy into the living room. He sat on the sofa, tying his sneakers. “Timothy, let’s just watch TV or something,” I said. “It’s only midnight. I had this whole vision of us waking up together, reading the Times, eating bagels…”

  “Jane, I’m really sorry, but I’m just in the mood to be alone, okay? Here’s your bra.” He tossed it to me, and I felt myself blush.

  I didn’t know if I was supposed to be mad or supportive. I didn’t know Timothy well enough to know if he was always like this or if he was truly suffering from first-time-out syndrome. I found my sweater in a ball by the side of the couch.

  Dating was costing me a fortune in dry cleaning.

  “How about a nightcap?” I said to Timothy as we neared my apartment building. He’d been quiet during the cab ride here, but he was the only guy I’d ever been on a date with who had actually “taken me home.” Most guys would hail you a cab and kiss you goodbye at the curb. But Timothy had insisted on taking me home the only way a guy could without a car.

  “Sounds good,” he said, dimples popping.

  Finally. I’d been afraid I’d never see those dimples again.

  “Cute place,” he said as I opened the door to my apartment and switched on the lights. “Very cozy.”

  So cozy that three minutes later we were lip-locked on my futon. My cardigan had been flung over my television, and my skirt had tried to join it, but missed and landed on the floor. The Miracle Bra was draped over the Parsons table. Timothy’s T-shirt and jeans were on the kilim rug. He had the most amazing body. His New York Sports Club developed chest was tanned and lightly covered with silky, dark hair. And what abs.

  Once again, hands, mouths, fingers, arms, legs and breath were everywhere. And once again, Timothy ripped open a foil packet containing a condom. And once again, Timothy busied himself putting on said condom.

  And at exactly 12:52 a.m. on Sunday, June 14, Timothy and I made love.

  Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh, yeah! Ohhhhh!”

  That wasn’t Timothy and me making all that noise. We’d both flopped onto our backs, sated and happy and breathing hard, our eyes closed, when Opera Man’s girlfriend started moaning her ohs.

  Timothy’s eyes widened and he laughed. “Hey, that’s Carmen, isn’t it?” he asked, straining to listen to the opera through the wall. “Do you think they heard us?”

  I blushed. We had been a little noisy. Well, just at the end, really.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!!! Oh yeah! Oh!”

  “Are they married?” Timothy asked, his hands behind his head.

  “Nope. He lives alone. I’ve never seen him, or her, but I think it’s the same woman. Sh
e always sounds the same.”

  “Well, I can’t let him put me to shame like that,” Timothy said, trailing a line of kisses down my neck, down my chest, down my stomach.

  Did I mention how much in love I was?

  I was a nervous wreck the following week. Each day I waited for the big speech. The It’s Not You, It’s Me. Which really translated to It’s Not Me, It’s You, Because I Don’t Like You After All. But one entire week later (it was now late Saturday afternoon, seven nerve-racking days since Timothy and I had done the deed for the first time), no big speech. No big anything, for that matter, but, well, Timothy was a doctor. I hadn’t seen him since Sunday afternoon. Yeah, yeah, he’d let me know this past week would be a nightmare for him rotation-wise, but I was dying to see him. Oh, the pun I could make in this lovesick state! But I wouldn’t. I had better things to do. Like whoop it up around my apartment because guess who had a date with a doctor named Timothy Rommely for Princess Dana’s wedding!

  I’d asked Timothy the big question last Sunday morning, after we’d made love the second time (yes, the second time that morning). The you-know-what issue that had plagued him the evening before had gone bye-bye. He’d stayed over on my too-small futon, which meant we’d slept cuddled together, our arms and legs flung over each other, our mouths thisclose for sleeping kisses. In the morning we’d gone out to pick up the Times and some bagels and cream cheese, then went back to my apartment to luxuriate in bed for a couple of hours. We’d had sex in at least three positions. And then Timothy surprised me by grabbing the Style section to read. “Hey, I know that guy!” he’d exclaimed, pointing with his bagel at a photo atop a wedding announcement. “This woman’s related to Nelson D. Rockefeller!” was followed by “I can’t believe this guy’s getting married at twenty-four.” And so it seemed the perfect time and place to mention that my cousin’s twenty-four-year-old face would soon grace those very pages.

  “Sure, I’d love to go. Do I need a tux?” was his response to the question I’d been terrified to ask.

  It was that simple. One question, one affirmative answer and, suddenly, I had a real date to the wedding. No, not just a real date. Timothy was hardly just a guy to help me save face with Natasha and Dana and Aunt Ina and Grammy. He was real. He wasn’t some too-good-looking, out-of-my-stratosphere man I could never have. He wasn’t safe. He was the real thing. And there I was, going for it whole hog, as Amanda would say. I would have liked to smoke my way through how scary it all was—liking someone so much, wishing on stars the way I did when I was a kid that he’d fall madly in love, hoping, hoping, hoping that this little romance would blossom into something beautiful and big and mine, all mine.

  Okay, back to earth. Things weren’t perfect, but they weren’t supposed to be. Wasn’t that what I’d learned from my lack of reaction to Jeremy’s engagement to Ms. Vogue? Loving someone you couldn’t have was perfect. That way, you only hurt yourself, because you were having a very intense relationship with your own heart and dreams, instead of with another person. I’d already begun putting my little epiphany to use. For example, when Timothy had told me before he left early Sunday afternoon that “dating a doctor ain’t all it’s cracked up to be—sometimes I’m so busy that my closest friends don’t see me for weeks,” I didn’t go ape and call Eloise and Amanda and ask for an analysis. My instincts had told me that a statement like that was cause for mini-alarm. His closest friends? What was I? Chopped liver (as Aunt Ina would say)? And, although I only had three dates and one sleepover to go on, I had noticed that Timothy could be a tad impatient, like the way he’d acted last Saturday night when we couldn’t make love.

  And, while I was going over his every flaw and fault and driving myself bonkers and triggering my own whopping desire to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes, I might as well throw the biggie into the fray: He didn’t call me until Wednesday. Did I sound childish? Like a teenager? I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to quibble about this. But it seemed like another warning signal. How much could he like me if he didn’t call Sunday night to tell me what a wonderful time he’d had, that he couldn’t wait to see me again and, in fact, how about a date Tuesday or Wednesday? He hadn’t called Monday either. I’d thought about calling him on Monday night to say hello, but I didn’t want to seem too clingy. Same for Tuesday. Eloise had instructed me to call him, that this wasn’t the 1950s if I hadn’t noticed, and since when did I give control of my life and my relationship to the guy? Why did he get to call the shots? I didn’t know the answer to that. I just knew I couldn’t call him. I wanted to be called. Did that make sense? By Wednesday I’d been jumping out of my skin, but then he’d called! I’d been reading Natasha’s revision of Chapter Two, which was really juicy and well-done, when the phone rang. I’d said my mini-prayer that it would be him and not Aunt Ina, and God was on my side.

  Sort of. Timothy told me he was so sorry he hadn’t been able to call, but busy, busy, busy, rotation, rotation, rotation, the William Remke of the hospital was on the warpath, busy, busy, busy, blah, blah, blah, he didn’t think he’d have a chance to get away from the hospital other than to sleep for the next week, maybe even two weeks, things were that bad, blah, blah, blah, he wished he could stop by even to say hi, but busy, busy, busy, blah, blah, blah.

  There was nothing worse than being beyond disappointed and not being able to be upset at the source. How could I quibble with the working life of a resident? Everyone had heard the horror stories of interns and residents working thirty-six hours straight, four hours a day for sleep and barely half a day off. Who was I to complain that Timothy couldn’t come over to watch Who Wants To Be a Millionaire with me? The guy was busy for real. He wasn’t playing squash with his friends or going to strip clubs or watching televised sports. He was working. And I’d better get used to it if I wanted this man in my life. Which I most certainly did.

  I’d been hoping to whine about these matters at the Flirt Night Roundtable this past Friday, but it had been canceled. Amanda had a “thing” to attend with Jeff (business related) and Eloise was fighting a cold. So I’d made myself busy by finishing up my comments for Natasha’s revised Chapter Two (which needed only minor tweaking) and making marginal notes on the first draft of Chapter Three. I’d read Natasha’s work with a very different eye than I had when I’d first taken her on as an author. And with a very different heart. A heart, period. After spending so much time with her, learning so much firsthand about her, witnessing her mother’s coldness with my own eyes, I had a context for everything I read. Natasha had called in a few times to report on her progress on the outline, which she was developing into a chapter-by-chapter masterpiece. She was also on page 120 of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. She’d sounded okay—not her usual effervescent self, a tad subdued, but not depressed. I’d called her last Sunday afternoon after Timothy left to ask how she was doing. She burst into tears at the sound of my voice. I asked if she wanted some company, I felt so bad for her, but she said no, she needed to be alone and try to work her mother’s words out of her system. I believed she would be okay. She’d proved she could handle quite a lot. At least she had the Houseboat Dweller. It wasn’t like she was all alone in the world. She had the proposing boyfriend and the baby, and that surely brought her a large degree of comfort.

  The phone rang. Timothy? Please, please, please. Nope. This time it was indeed Aunt Ina, checking in with her thrice-weekly hello. Uncle Charlie had a sore throat, Grammy was just fine and guess what that nice Ethan Miles next door did the other day? He was nice enough to hang up the new needlepoint duck-pond scene that Grammy had had framed. Dana was arguing with her florist, and Aunt Ina was the queen of her building now that the wedding was coming right up. “Marla in 4K wants to know how much the wedding is costing us,” Aunt Ina tsk-tsked. “Do you believe her nerve? I was going to tell her that Larry’s paying, but what is it her business? I told her it cost plenty.” And of course Aunt Ina asked how things with Timothy were, to which I’d replied with an enthusiastic “Gre
at!”

  As Aunt Ina and I said our goodbyes and hung up, I realized that I wasn’t breaking out in hives over the fact that the wedding was just over a month away. Why wasn’t exactly a million-dollar question. I knew it was because of Timothy. In just four mere weeks, my life had changed so much. I’d gone from boyfriendless to boyfriendfull, smoker to nonsmoker, ignored by Jeremy and Remke to applauded for my efforts, and I’d even admitted my true status as lowly assistant editor to Natasha. And it didn’t even hurt. Thanks to her, and to Gwen and Jeremy and Remke—and even to Morgan Morgan—my worth as an editor had been validated enough to make me feel appreciated. So title, schmitle. Well, okay, not title schmitle. I wanted to be an associate editor so bad I could—I didn’t know what I could do. I only knew I wanted it. I’d have to wait until late January, when the complete manuscript of The Stopped Starlet was due. That was when Remke could read for himself just how much I deserved to be an associate editor—and deserved a big fat raise.

  I was suddenly struck with the desire to clean house, to vacuum my rug with Carpet Fresh and Windex my windows and mirrors and fold all my underwear, which was currently strewn all over in the top drawer of my dresser. I wanted my apartment to gleam the next time Timothy came over, not that I knew when that would be. Perhaps this coming week? The following week? Anyway, I knew exactly where to begin my cleaning frenzy: by getting rid of my cigarette paraphernalia. I was ready to throw the ashtrays and lighters away.

  The whole sorry mess in a D’Agastino’s supermarket plastic bag, I opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and tossed the bag in the trash. Goodbye, smoking career—

  “But you said you love me, El-weeze!” Serge bellowed one floor below. “You wear my ring. We are engaged to be married!”

  “Serge, I do love you, it’s just that I’m not ready to get married.”

  “To me!” he shouted. “You mean you are not ready to get married to me!”