by Ruby Lang
Sharon, because her timing was impeccable, bustled in. “Oh, you newlyweds getting busy in the closet,” she twinkled. “I’m just going to make sure you have the fact sheet. The maintenance is very low, and the co-op has a healthy nest egg. Just let me know if you have questions about either apartment. Although to tell you the truth, I think this one suits both of you more. I can just picture you loving it up in here.”
If they weren’t already both blushing guiltily, then Sharon’s last words were more than enough to set Oliver’s face aflame.
By silent agreement, they thanked Sharon, who had already moved on to the next adorable and (probably) more real couple that had come to see the apartment. They escaped out onto the stoop and they both took a deep, deep breath.
Fay turned, and with her usual directness said, “We need to talk. Let’s go sit down somewhere.”
“Coffee? Or something cool to drink.”
God knows he could use a moment to think about whether or not he’d just scrapped his chance at another job. Last week’s behavior could have been overlooked. Sure, it had involved lips, hipbones bumping, and an intimacy that started off as fake and turned into something real, too. But she’d initiated it. He’d been a convenient bystander.
An all-too-willing one.
Today’s hadn’t been a simple kiss at all. There was a dark grain of illicitness to their small, private act playing out in a place where anyone could have walked in on them. To the fact that they weren’t, in fact, a loving, legally or emotionally bound couple looking for a home to decorate with rugs and beds and 500-thread-count linens. That they hadn’t been close before—that even though he was Oliver, she was Fay—she wasn’t Darling.
And then there was the kiss itself, in which her lips had opened under his, lush and wet. He had felt himself just—just sinking into her, right into that one point where their mouths met as if he tried hard enough, if he focused, his whole body could be immersed in that pleasure and warmth.
But his personal lust ocean had already started walking west. He blinked for a moment in the sunlight and followed. Sitting down right about now would be a good idea—it would probably be a very good idea.
They went into a buzzing cafe on Malcolm X Boulevard and ordered strong coffees that came in tall cups. “What are your intentions toward me?” she said, as they sat down at their table.
“I—I... What?”
The coffee cups flanked her like a pair of henchmen. He wanted to glare at them.
“That came out a bit harsh. But I mean it.”
“I can tell.”
“If I don’t protect myself, no one else will do it for me. I’m not some newly divorced woman wanting a giggle and a cuddle. I don’t need a fling. I already did that—sort of. I’m going to be honest with you: I want something serious with someone serious.”
He took a breath. This had escalated quickly. And he still hadn’t found a way to mention the possible interview at her firm, the potential that they’d be working together. “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was wondering more about—”
“I know Maria, and Priya, and Liz, and some of the other women you’ve been out with, for example.”
Oliver paused, confused by this turn of the conversation. “Fay, you’ve known me for more than ten years. I dated Maria for a few months about... I don’t know, five years ago? And I went out on one date with Liz when I was barely out of grad school—”
“Two. And one of them was a wedding.”
“You kept track?”
That was frightening. Or flattering? Maybe both.
“Well, no. But I was—am—friends with other people, and I have a good memory.”
“Okay. I’m not sure what you want me to say here.”
“Why didn’t you ever get married?”
Oliver opened his mouth, and then closed it again, trying to understand where all of this was coming from. She wanted something serious—and maybe he didn’t. He’d never been married. It was never the right time: he’d always been in school, or just starting out his career, or his partner had been doing the same. And now he hadn’t had a serious relationship in a long while, and didn’t have a steady job. Did she know that? Had Teddy mentioned he was interviewing with them? Or would be, if they’d ever schedule the damn thing. At the rate they were going, he wasn’t sure she was in a position to talk about being slow off the mark.
She didn’t think he was a serious person. Serious people had jobs. And yet he was annoyed by her assessment of him. He hadn’t met the right woman. The timing was never good. He was cautious. He didn’t want to be shiftless and jobless and as unreliable as his father, for fuck’s sake.
And none of the people he’d dated had been her.
He opened his mouth again, but at that crystallizing moment, someone came up to their table. “Fay! Oliver.”
Sally Chin. He’d gone out on two—no, three—dates with her eight months ago; she was the last person he’d been out with, actually. She had decided they weren’t clicking and he’d been somewhat relieved. Although he would feel better right now if it weren’t written all over her face that she’d been the one to drop him; she was the picture of contrition and smugness.
Perhaps that was uncharitable. But he was allowed to be a little petty right at this particular unfortunate moment.
She gave Fay a kiss on the cheek while Oliver stood up. She leaned into him and Oliver tried not to be stiff, or friendly, or sad, or studiously nonchalant. For four seconds he held himself extremely medium, and afterward, when he saw Fay was very carefully not watching him and Sally, he wondered why he’d bothered.
“Let me get you a chair,” he said, needing a few moments away from Sally’s orbit as possible.
“No. No, Oliver. It’s all right. I don’t want to interrupt.”
Too damn late.
She continued, “I’m just so glad to see you both. And doing so well. Getting out there, you know.”
Fay bristled at that a little, but Sally continued, oblivious. “So glad to see you dating again.”
He shot a quick glance at Fay, who was frowning. “Well, we’re not exactly—”
“I was watching you two for a while before I came up. I recognize that look. And Fay, really, if you’re worried that you’re violating some sort of girl code by dating someone I went out with—”
Fay turned to Oliver and arched an eyebrow. Whether it meant, You went out with Sally? Or, I told you you’d gone out with everyone I know. Or, We aren’t that close, so I don’t need her permission—or, all of the above, Oliver wasn’t sure. A single eyebrow could convey a lot, but there was a lot to convey at this particular moment.
“But I don’t mind,” Sally was saying. “It wasn’t a significant relationship. A blip, really.”
“Gee thanks, Sal.”
It was true, though.
“But Oliver, you were such an important step to finding the person I did want to be with. I am so happy with Doug. I want everyone to feel this way.”
She patted Oliver’s hand consolingly. For a minute she looked like she wanted to do the same with Fay, but Fay’s expression seemed to have finally penetrated Sally’s thick marshmallow of happiness.
Fay said, “Oliver and I aren’t together together, Sally.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “You two. Listen, I know when to back off—”
Fay may have snorted. Or maybe it was one of the espresso machines.
“It’s such a small community we work in,” Sally was saying. “So, I can see you probably don’t want those rumors flying. I mean, we’re a gossipy bunch, I’ll admit that. But the way you were gazing at each other when I came up, so intense, like you’d released this dam of emotion. There’s clearly a story here. And if there’s a story, that means there’s something.”
“It’s something all right,” Fay may have mutt
ered.
But Sally was done sprinkling her fairy-tale glitter over them. She said something about leaving them to explore each other and fluttered a goodbye and was soon out the door in a jangle of bells, bracelets, and mixed feelings.
“What the hell was that? I used to think she was okay,” Fay grumbled. “I can’t believe you went out with her, too.”
“I was trying to get to know her.”
Instead of jumping straight into “intentions,” he didn’t say, because it was unkind and perhaps a bit unfair. In fact, he felt a twinge of sympathy for Fay. The way she’d responded so quickly to Sally that they weren’t together together. His head was so far up his own ass that he hadn’t noticed that this, whatever this was, was a big, scary step for her. And that overbearing Sally—and maybe that real estate broker from before—had trampled all over Fay’s feelings.
“I am so tired of this,” Fay said, suddenly. “I am so tired of that look people get and of everyone saying they’re glad I’m getting out there. I have gotten out there. I was out there before. What the hell do these people know about being in there, out there, or anywhere in between? You know what was shitty? Being in there with someone who didn’t support me, who got jealous when I worked too hard, got restless when I spent time with him but never fucking told me how he felt until it was too late. In there wasn’t good these last few years. It was a trap. Out here is scary, but at least I have hope it can be better.”
She was just a woman who’d been with one person for a long time and who was trying to figure out how to date again. She’d called him up. He knew he wasn’t very scary, but she didn’t. She’d done something brave.
“I’m really sorry about your marriage, Fay. That you ended up feeling that way.”
She took a deep breath. “I think that’s the first time anyone has said that to me. Oh, you know, people say they’re sad about the divorce. Or if they can’t bring themselves to ask me about that particular D-word, they ask me very significantly how I’m doing. But no one ever says anything about how I must have felt in order to end my marriage, or that maybe it was good for me, that it will be better for me.”
“I think it has been better for you.”
“Well, my best friend thinks I’m a mess, that I have no energy left, that I can’t finish one single thing anymore.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow. “I think you might be the most driven person I know.” Then, thinking it sounded cold or off-putting somehow, he hastily added, “That’s a compliment, by the way.”
Fay snorted. “Isn’t it ironic that my husband didn’t like how ambitious I was, didn’t like how much I did? You know, at first, I thought it would be great to be with someone who was so easygoing. And it was, at first. When we were both toiling away, trying to climb up the proverbial ladder. But after I launched the firm with Teddy and Sulagna, he changed. He started sulking when I talked about work and got snide when I tried to ask about his. When I asked him normal questions about his day, his job, he said it was so much pressure. Why was I hounding him? But I wasn’t. Even innocent questions about his coworkers—Does Jenny still bring in baked goods?—and he’d snap at me. He was the one who ended up being hard on me. By the end, he just didn’t like me—or himself. It was difficult to tell.”
“Those are pretty normal questions.”
She shook her head. “God, this is exactly the trap I wanted to avoid falling into—being that self-unaware person who ends up endlessly rehashing my baggage when I’m trying to move on—no—when I’m moving on.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I wasn’t really. But that’s how women are supposed to be, right? Play it cool, be quiet about what they want, and just hope they get it somehow.”
She was staring at her coffee cup as if she could incinerate it. Her hair had started to curl from the warmth she was generating, and he wanted to reach over and pull on a stray lock. The thought that it would make her angrier made him want to laugh. Maybe he wanted to lean toward her and kiss her pink cheeks and have her eyes snap at him even more. It was exactly the wrong thought to have right at this particular moment. He didn’t want to be drawn to her, he didn’t want to find her funny or endearing. He didn’t want to have the urge to protect her. He didn’t want to worry about Fay at all when he should be worried about protecting himself.
But what he said was, “That’s what I’ve always liked about you. You have this way of sticking up for yourself and making it come out right. It’s like that time with the bugs.”
“Oh God, not that again.”
“Fay, my point is that you did the right thing for yourself and turned the situation around, too. And you’re doing that now—with your life. You got divorced because you were unhappy and you needed a change. I could stand to learn from that.”
“It doesn’t feel like that. It feels like I’m at the bugs-on-my-legs-and-everyone-recoiling-in-horror stage.”
“But that just means the chocolate-milkshakes-for-everyone stage is right around the corner.”
It coaxed a smile out of her, which was what he intended, but Oliver continued to think about the things Fay had confessed, marveling at her resilience. Here was a clear-eyed woman, who’d seen that her life was stuck in a place she didn’t like and changed it.
He’d call Teddy first thing Monday to try to nudge them about an interview. It was time to get serious.
Sunday
In the end, Fay had drunk up that entire giant cup of black coffee from the cafe. And although it hadn’t made her jittery, it did keep her awake that night, playing their conversation in her head over and over.
No, not just their conversation—their kisses in the closet, the firmness of him against her, his shoulders, tense and desperate, his mouth.
She’d tried to get some work done. She’d thought about calling Renata. But in the end, she’d stretched out on her mattress and given herself over to thoughts about Oliver.
The truth was she remembered too well that he’d been the one to help her on that day long ago when she’d waded into a bug-infested field in New Jersey. She remembered emerging, trying not to panic as almost everyone around her squealed and ran away. She’d tucked that afternoon in a back corner of her mind a long time ago. But it was still there, a little blurry around the edges, but the important parts were intact. Maybe she’d kept it hidden away because she’d labeled it a minor bad memory. But now, after Oliver talked about it, her recollection of it had changed. She recalled that she’d enjoyed walking in that field, away from the chatter of her friends. It was sunny, the grass was cooler, and she could feel the humidity rising up. And after she emerged, after the fuss had died down and Oliver was calmly helping her, she remembered thinking that there was something wrong about the fact that she was intensely aware of being scrutinized by him. She’d stood facing the car in a pair of borrowed flip-flops, while he carefully and gently looked her over, and she had felt it. She’d been with Jeremy at the time, but of course, she’d been conscious of Oliver’s eyes on her, of knowing that she was safe with him, that he would be careful.
Even as she recalled the long-ago scene, the memory changed and blossomed. In her mind, Oliver wasn’t the carefree young thing he’d seemed back then. In her new version, the warmth of yesterday’s afternoon kisses slipped in. She was free of Jeremy. She could let Oliver look. She could stand outside in the sunlight, let him touch more than her ankle, let him trail his thumb up her calf and along the tensed, grooved muscle of her thigh, then inside, while their friends’ voices buzzed in the distance. He would be careful this time, too, but this time all of their care would be about keeping quiet.
She closed her eyes against the image, against the deep, wet pulse down between her legs. Her mattress creaked as she shifted, trying to get comfortable, trying to ignore how her nipples dragged along her T-shirt, under her sheet.
Finally, with an impatient huff, she reached d
own and pulled off her sleep boxers and placed them neatly on the pillow beside her. She sat up and pulled off her tee. She told herself she was going to do this really quickly—just to take the edge off—and then she was going to stop thinking about Oliver and go to sleep.
But even as she made the sounds indicating her impatience, she could feel her pulse speed up in anticipation. And that irritated her. Because it wasn’t as if Oliver were really here, on this mattress on the floor, looking at her as she sat in bed.
She could hear herself panting.
Right. Down to business. She lay back and slipped her hand down, trying to get to the point, as it were, as efficiently as possible. But even as she put her fingers right on her clit—no sense in being coy and tender with herself—she couldn’t help saying his name. She tried to do it in as normal a voice as possible. It seemed loud in the largely unfurnished room—loud and almost electrifying.
She closed her eyes. “Oliver.”
His name had seemed so stuffy when she’d first met him. It made him seem like the kind of person who might wear a bowtie. And then the name became him: Oliver. In the afternoon, in that townhouse closet, they’d kissed and she’d felt wild. Even as her mouth had opened against his, as she’d pushed herself against his hands, his chest, the stiffening of his cock, she wanted to claw at him to pull him even closer. But now as she whispered and murmured his name over to herself, her fingers working through her own slickness, she spread her legs wide and opened her mouth to the O and licked her lips to the L and the V, tossing her head back and forth to the last syllable as she came.
She remembered this the next morning during her early Sunday jog through St. Nicholas Park. The summer flowers were already in full bloom, and even though it was before 8 a.m., people were already staking out their barbecue spots. She remembered while she spent a few minutes prying tile from her bathroom floor. During her phone call with her parents, she’d even stopped listening to them for a few minutes to imagine what Oliver was doing. What he could do to her. They didn’t notice that she wasn’t speaking. They were arguing with each other on separate landlines, as they usually did, in a mixture of Mandarin and English, with names of relatives and friends sprinkled in, that made it hard for her to follow anyway.
