Close Relations (34 page)

His hand slid between my legs, and while he had almost no expertise, I was so excited by the thought of him that I didn’t even bother to show him what I liked. Then he rammed a finger inside me, then two, then three.

“You’re ready,” he said, climbing on top of me.

“I’m not. I’m not.” I braced my hands against his chest and tried to push him off. I slithered back and forth, trying to wiggle my way out. I was afraid he would damage me. I knew he wasn’t wearing a condom. I was scared I was committing an act that would split me off from the life I had established. “David, wait.”

He didn’t, of course, and I suppose I really didn’t want him to. He was probably accustomed to these protests, to writhings and cries of no that meant yes. I screamed as he entered. It kept hurting. And he held onto me so tight, squeezed my flesh so hard, that that hurt too. And then the pain turned to pleasure. David had taken me over.

He was not an adept lover. He moved arrhythmically He did nothing more than the average teenage boy would. There were no studied sexual techniques to remind me that this was a meeting of minds as well as bodies. But feeling him was enough. I let go. I screamed. I scratched him and bit him and wept. I came over and over, more than I had ever done in my life.

And finally he did too, with a long deep groan, as though he too were in pain. He grasped my arms and I could feel the curve of his short nails pressing on my skin.

A moment later, David C. Hoffman of Harvard returned to me, civilized as ever. “Are you all right?” he asked gently.

I was so sore I could not pull up my knees to curl into a ball to give myself some comfort. “I think so.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“David, we forgot….”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry. I got carried away. Is it a bad time of the month for you?”

He stroked my eyebrow over and over. Every once in a while he’d brush my forehead with a kiss. “I’m not sure,” I replied.

H
ow do you like your bath water?” David called. He was an excellent host.

“Hot, please.” As the water whooshed into the tub, I pushed myself into a sitting position on the bed. David returned from the bathroom and offered me a large towel, as if assuming my modesty was so great that I would not permit him to see me undraped. “Thank you.” I put the towel over my arm and walked, very gingerly, into the bathroom. My insides hurt; my legs felt spongy and I could not keep them together. I thought I must look like a wishbone. “Oh, boy,” I muttered. I left the bathroom door open a few inches. David, the gentleman, remained in the bedroom.

I lay back in the steamy water that filled the claw-footed tub. “Tomorrow I’ll go out and get you some nice bath oil,” David said as I lathered up with a big cake of soap. It had a manly, spicy smell, like oranges and cloves. I covered myself with suds, even the bottoms of my feet. The apartment in the Village had no tub, only a stall shower, and I luxuriated in the bath, washing off the odor of sex and replacing it with the well-bred scent of expensive soap. I felt guilty for not feeling guilty, but that lasted for just a moment. I got out of the bath and wrapped myself up in the blue towel, thick and lush enough to absorb a year of after-bath moisture. I sniffed the lightly perfumed skin of my arm.

“I’d like to ask you something,” David called.

“Hmm?”

“What are your living arrangements?”

I clenched the towel tight around me. “Well,” I began.

“Is that a rude question?”

“No. Of course not.” I mused that David probably didn’t comprehend what rudeness really was. To him it was just a concept. And he seemed bred to emit waves of light courtesies to obscure any dark emotion he might feel. “You knew I was living with someone.”

“Yes.” His voice was soft and courtly.

“Well, he’s away. Out of town. The apartment is his, the lease is in his name, but I’m staying in it until I can find another place—or until he gets back to the city.”

“Oh. Can I ask what he does?”

“He’s involved in politics. I’d rather not discuss it anymore. Okay?”

“Of course.”

I returned to the bedroom somewhat more surefooted than when I had left it. David had put on a brown bathrobe.

“I didn’t mean to seem intrusive,” he said, “but I wanted to know. I couldn’t figure out whether you’d be offended, but I said to hell with it.”

“It’s okay, David.” He was holding my bra, and I reached for it.

“Oh, here. Sorry.”

“You don’t want to keep it as a souvenir?”

“I’d rather keep you.” He walked toward me and I watched, hoping his bathrobe would part, so I could see inside. But it was well-cut; it stayed closed. “Please sleep here tonight,” he said, folding his arms around me. “We’ll get up extra early and have breakfast at the Regency. Fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

“I can’t, David.”

“Croissants.”

“I have a lot of paper work at home. Really, I can’t stay.”

“At least promise me another night tomorrow.” I swallowed and nearly let my hand drift up and reach inside his robe. “I’ll come up with a place that has a real old-fashioned orchestra and we’ll waltz up a storm.”

“I don’t know how to waltz.”

“Of course you do. Everybody does.”

It wasn’t until the taxi whizzed by Washington Square Park, two minutes from the apartment, that I began thinking of Jerry. He would understand that I couldn’t waltz. Instead of trying to dance in too-high heels, or growing tense trying to recall an apt quote from
The Tempest,
I could sit in a cheap restaurant in Little Italy with Jerry, sucking in linguini and swapping Carmine DeSapio stories. I could gaze upon a face that made me want to purr with pleasure instead of one so ordinary that, ten minutes after I left, I could not recall it. I could relax.

Perhaps the episode in the dark was an aberration. I had had much too much to drink. I was seduced by the richness of his apartment, by his solicitousness, by his being just the sort of man my family insisted I should want.

As the cab turned onto my block, I dipped my pinky into my lip gloss and smeared on a thick coating, so Jerry might believe I came straight home, loyal and loving after an evening of theater with the Drexlers.

My hand shook as I paid the driver. The night had brought out the worst in me. Even in my bleakest days I had been reasonably honest. Suddenly I had become a sneak. I had lied to Jerry. I had lied to Paterno, missing a rally I should have attended and petting his ego to cover up. I had even lied to David, telling him that Jerry was not merely past tense but absent.

I was greatly relieved to find the apartment dark. I had worried that Jerry might be up, willing to forgive and forget, especially after his celibate upstate nights. If he was deep in sleep, I could slip into bed without any confrontation. If he stirred, reached out for me, I could develop a headache. A stomachache. But Jerry was not there.

My insides ached. I fell asleep and wakened an hour or two later. I probably had a dream about David. At least I assumed it, because I woke aroused, wanting him. I turned over and then stiffened, realizing where I was. But Jerry still hadn’t come in. I tried to wait for him, but I gave in to my need to dream.

I awoke again, in that blue-gray hour just before dawn. Jerry was standing silently at the foot of the bed. I had been pulled into consciousness by the smell of liquor, as if someone were holding an open bottle of scotch under my nose.

“Jerry, are you all right?”

“Yes. Fine.” He spoke clearly, showing no signs of being even tipsy. “I have to get a couple of hours’ sleep. No conversations.” His voice was husky. His words were clipped. I turned on the light and he turned his back to me. “Please turn that off.” He was so remote. He was not cranky, angry or hurt. It seemed like another Jerry, as though the alcohol had permeated his cells, manipulated his genes, turning him into a remarkably familiar but new individual.

“I know how annoyed you are, Jerry. I mean, you came home to see me and I rushed out on you.” He would not look at me. “I’m really sorry.” The back of his shirt was wrinkled and translucent with perspiration. “Look, I know it’s been tough with us. I mean, we keep sniping and making up and then sniping again, but once the campaign is over we’ll be able to relax.”

Jerry marched to the bathroom, closed the door, and threw up.

“Are you all right?” I called.

“Let me be.”

We awoke the same moment the next morning, curled in each other’s arms. We opened our eyes, stared for a moment, and then jerked apart. “I’ll shower first,” he said. “I have to get in early.”

The day was as awkward as the night. Lyle LoBello was rumored to be in Troy, convincing a senile industrialist that his money was better invested in Paterno than in negotiable securities. Jerry took over. “You’re fifteen minutes late,” he announced as I dashed into the staff meeting, climbing over feet and knees until I found an empty chair.

“Sorry.” There was nothing unusual about the content of the exchange. When we had begun living together, Jerry and I agreed that he would continue to treat me like any other member of the City Hall staff. But his tone was icy, as though he were talking to a young volunteer who had just made some stupid, irreparable error. I opened my notebook. When I looked up, I saw he was flipping through a file of papers and computer printouts. He seemed to have forgotten me.

But a vein on his temple throbbed, one of his silent stress signals, and every minute or so he’d run his fingers over it. “All right,” he said, looking up, “you’ve heard the bad news. Now the good news.” I peered around the room for some clue of what had gone on, but while most of the staff looked appropriately morose, I could get no clear feeling of what had gone on. Joe Cole, sitting beside me, had his lips compressed into a severe pout. I glanced at Eileen. She looked upset too. She gave me a fast blink and turned back to Jerry, who had begun speaking again.

“I have a copy of tomorrow’s
Daily News
poll.” Metal chairs squealed as people shifted expectantly. Jerry had announced good news. “We finally made it. We’re four points ahead of Appel!”

Cheers. Hey! Fabulous! No shit! Wonderful! About time! Wow!

“He’s got thirty-two points, we’ve got thirty-six, Parker’s got nineteen, and the rest are undecided. Now that’s damn good. Appel will be running scared, and the more he shows himself, it seems to me, the deeper he’ll bury himself.” Jerry didn’t even glance at me as he said this, although it was my theory, one that I had expounded to him weeks earlier, when Appel began to seem vulnerable. “Now, what we have to do is take an aggressive position.” Jerry’s legs were slightly apart, as though he were standing firm, prepared for a fight. “We can’t sit around and wait for Appel to mouth off some more on humane balance sheets or whatever the hell he talks about. Right?”

LoBello’s contingent, sitting in the first two rows, were nodding in agreement. Jerry was playing to them, smiling and wooing them. Their heads followed him as he strode across the front of the room.

“We have to decide what themes in this campaign are working, which are solid and worth stressing, and which are bullshit. Okay? Are you with me?” They were. Even a little redhead, reputed to be LoBello’s newest lady, was with Jerry. Her head was tilted to one side, taking him in. He flashed her a fast grin, nearly thoughtless, but one that would repeat itself in her mind throughout the day.

The men in the front rows sat up straighter, listening to him. Jerry didn’t have to swagger like LoBello; just walking was enough. And when he talked, his easy voice and slightly rough Bronx accent caught them up. He was the cool Yankee third baseman who would inevitably be Most Valuable Player. They sensed that now. Jerry was back in the game.

“All right. I’m going to call each of you into my office today, and I want your straight opinions on what stays and what goes. Now I said straight. This is a fight, a real battling primary, and there’s no time for personalities and tender feelings. We only have time to win.”

It was sophomoric. Yet as he walked from the room I had—as I sensed the other staff members had—a deep urge to cheer him as he departed, to throw confetti and roll up my sleeves and work all night. I forgot I was to waltz.

In my office, I wrote three speeches in two hours. I reviewed the ad agency’s work and finished a rough draft of an article for the op-ed page of the
Times
that would be submitted in Paterno’s name. I worked unceasingly, waiting for the phone to ring and summon me to Jerry’s office. It finally did.

“Hello,” I snapped, trying to sound annoyed at being interrupted.

“Marcia? Is that you?” It was my mother.

“Yes. How are you, Mom?”

“Fine. Fine, thank you.” She was using her aristocratic voice, which meant she was probably calling from my Aunt Estelle’s house. “And you, Marcia?”

“Fine, thanks. A little rushed right now.” I did not want Jerry to get a busy signal.

“Well, I don’t want to disturb you. I just wondered if you knew David Hoffman’s address.”

“What?”

“David Hoffman’s address. There are seven David Hoffmans in the Manhattan phone book.” I couldn’t speak. “I want to send him a thank-you note,” she continued.

“What for?” I managed to say.

“Oh, we were discussing politics at Barbara’s home and he suggested I read a certain book by a writer he had gone to Harvard with. It was delivered today, from a Manhattan bookstore. And I was going to take it out of the library.”

“Oh.”

“And he sent a lovely note on his calling card. It’s an engraved card with just his name on it, nothing else, and it says, ‘I enjoyed our talk. David Hoffman.’ Very thoughtful.”

“He said he lives in the East Sixties.”

“Oh. I assumed he’d live in that area. By the way, has he—”

I didn’t let her finish. “Look, I have a meeting right now in Jerry’s office. Can I speak to you tomorrow?”

“If you have time.” Still upper class, she hung up gently, on her best behavior for David’s calling card. I slammed down my receiver, angry that David was now disrupting my days as well as my nights.

The phone remained inactive for the rest of the afternoon, and by five thirty I knew things were going to be awkward with Jerry. My walk down the corridor to his office felt slow, as if I were plodding through fog. Yet everyone else seemed to be rushing about, energized by Jerry’s pep talk. Aides crossed my paths, carrying new leaflets or piles of mimeographed press releases, murmuring “’scuse me.” Or they raced from one office to another, bringing tidings of joy.