Love and Other Natural Disasters (27 page)

I was finally letting him pick me
up at home. Maybe that would remind us both that this was actually a date.

I was in Olivia's room and had just
finished breastfeeding her when the doorbell rang. "Charlie!" I
called. "Can you come and take Liv?"

He poked his head in the door.
"No, I'm going to answer that and meet your gentleman caller."

I stood up from the rocking chair
and Olivia immediately burst into tears. "Charlie, sit down and rock
her."

"You rock her an extra minute.
I need to have a little talk with Ray. Find out his intentions, his
prospects..." He was grinning.

I wasn't. I jiggled Liv, hoping
she'd stop crying, but it wasn't working. "Seriously. Please take
her."

"Seriously. I want to meet
your guy."

"You'll meet him next time.
Please." The doorbell pealed again. I hated to leave her when she was
crying.

"Fine." Charlie took Liv
from me, sat down, and began rocking.

"No, that's too fast. She
likes it slower." I straightened my shirt and touched my hair.

"Hey, Liv and me have our own
system." He maintained his pace and her sobs started to fade out. He
patted her on the back. "You're cool, little one," he said softly.

"Okay, I'm going." I
kissed the top of
Liv's
head.

"Don't forget, Lil's coming
over tonight."

"If you do it in my bed,
you're both dead."

He laughed. "At least one of
us should be getting some."

I hurried down the hall and yanked
open the front door. Ray looked just as he always did—poorly dressed, smiling
warmly—but there was something transformative about having him on my doorstep.
It was the first time it had been so apparent that this was a man who was here
for no one but me.

As if to confirm the change, he
leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "You look lovely," he said.

I touched my hair self-consciously,
but instead of protesting that
no, I didn't, I'd been breastfeeding five
minutes ago,
I smiled and said, "Thank you."

"You ready?" he asked.

"Let's go."

I followed him to his car, parked
behind Charlie's
Datsun
. I was surprised to see it
was a relatively new, nondescript sedan. I'd pictured him in something with
more character. This car fit in just fine in my neighborhood.

He opened the passenger door for
me, and I got in and thanked him. Once he was in the driver's seat, I said,
"Sorry I was late. Olivia was crying, and it's hard for me to leave when
she's like that."

"That's what I figured. I
could hear her from outside."

"Wow, really?"

"She's either got a hell of a
pair of lungs, or your house is made of plywood."

I laughed. "You know, I've
never trusted suburban construction."

He nodded mildly. It was one thing
for me to knock where I lived, another for him to do it, and I appreciated that
he got the distinction.

"Which neighborhood do you
live in?" I asked.

"The Mission. Not too far from
the park. I've been in the same apartment for about ten years."

"Has the neighborhood changed
much?"

"Like everywhere else in the
city, it's gotten hipper and richer. But you can still get the best burritos
this side
ol
Mexico. Do you like burritos?"

"As long as they're not too
spicy."

"I know just the place. Next
time." He reached across and squeezed my wrist. It was unexpected.

"Next time." I didn't
know if I found his confidence off-putting, or his certainty that he wanted to
see me again flattering. But I was smiling, so that meant something. "You
should take a left here."

He nodded. "I memorized the
route."

"From my house to the
theater?"

"It's only a few turns."

His preparedness was peculiarly
touching. I thought about squeezing him back, but where? His wrist seemed too
copycat, his forearm was just weird, and his leg seemed too forward. By the
time I'd run through my options, we were pulling into the parking lot.

There were a number of stores
sharing the parking lot with the theater, and I glanced at the Bed Bath &
Beyond. A young couple was exiting the store, laden with bags. It seemed
obvious they were just moving in together, or maybe just married. He was
clowning, putting a laundry basket on his head, and she was laughing in that
"Oh, stop!" kind of way. Someday, I thought, you'll really want him
to stop.

"It's pretty crowded
tonight," Ray said as he looked for an open space.

"Saturday night," I said
distractedly, watching the couple cross the lot toward their car.

"I can't remember the last
time I went to a Saturday-night movie. We should go out afterward and get a
milk shake. One milk shake, two straws, I'll tell the waitress, for me and my
girl."

Startled, I looked over at him. He
was still scanning the lot. I didn't know if he was mocking the idea of me
being his girl, or was trying to let me know that he wanted me to be.

"Ah," he said, turning on
his blinker and pausing to let a car back out of its space.

The ticket line was long, and I
felt disoriented. I didn't know what Ray was trying to tell me, or what I
wanted to happen. Jon was off with Jacob, Charlie and Lil were probably
screwing on my couch, Olivia was asleep in her crib, and here I was, waiting to
see the new Hugh Grant , movie when I felt like there was nothing romantic or
comic about love.

"Why did I want to see this
movie?" I asked Ray. "He's just going to play the same character he's
played twenty times already."

"He plays it well, at least.
Isn't it good to know there's something you can count on in this uncertain
world?" He was smiling at me. "There's Hugh Grant, death, and
taxes."

He launched into a story about
seeing a Hugh Grant movie in Indonesia, and I'm sure it was a good one, but I
was only half-listening. It wasn't Jon holding me back anymore, just me. I
tried to focus as Ray was wrapping up: "Sometimes, when you're traveling
for a while, just knowing what you're going to get and then having that
expectation fulfilled is the greatest thing. Then you can go back to the
unknown, fortified."

"I can see that," I said.
I could, I just couldn't think of anything to add. My last vacation had been to
Disneyland. How strange, to know that Jon could now take the kids for a week
and I could go anywhere I wanted.

Tickets in hand, we went inside the
theater. The lines for the concession stand were formidable. "Can I get
you anything?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Movie
popcorn is like two days' worth of saturated fat."

"If that's your only argument
against it—"

"No, my big argument is that I
don't feel like standing in that line."

"Why don't you go ahead and
find us seats? I'll stand in line."

"No, that's okay," I
said. I did want to get away from the smell of the synthetic butter as quickly
as possible. There was a banner above the concession stand promoting a new
movie with a blobby blue cartoon character whose six-foot-tall cardboard
cutouts were standing sentinel throughout the theater, and along the perimeter
were arcade games that flashed and rang. Not to mention the throngs of people
streaming by, laughing and talking. It felt like sensory overload.

"Is something wrong,
Eve?"

I forced a smile. "No."

He looked at
me carefully. "That's a little hard to believe."

"I'm a little out of sorts, I
guess."

"Are you thinking about Liv? I
can't imagine how hard it is to leave your kids behind."

Now I smiled for real.
"Thanks."

"So look, if you want
something to eat, I'll stand in the line. If you don't, let's go in. Where do I
get off eating two days' worth of saturated fat, anyway?"

I wound up glad we didn't get
popcorn or anything else that would interfere with Ray's smell. I couldn't
believe I'd never noticed it before, this vague but delicious scent of anise
and man. It wasn't cologne or soap or food; it was just him. We'd never sat
this close, and I found I couldn't concentrate on the movie at all. I was
focused entirely on Ray's proximity—when he shifted in his chair and his
shoulder brushed mine, his forearm flat against the armrest, whether his head
was tilted toward me, how his chest moved when he laughed. It must have been
the pheromones. I was chemically drawn to Ray.

I kept trying to position my body
in a way that would invite him to put his arm around me, but he seemed not to
notice. There was no way he was that engrossed in the movie. Sure, it was
passable, maybe even good by Hollywood standards, and Hugh Grant was his usual
droll self. But come on.

Right before the third-act
complications, I took matters into my own hands. I plopped my head on his shoulder.
There was nothing artful about it, and for the first few seconds, it was merely
awkward. But then, Ray snaked his arm around me so that his hand was against my
collarbone, and my entire body relaxed. I was surprised there wasn't a
whooshing sound, the release was so complete.

Neither of us said anything. Every
so often, I could tell that Ray was smelling my hair, and sometimes we held
hands. We didn't laugh again at the movie, as if we didn't want to jostle each
other and ruin the moment. When the final credits rolled, we watched them all
the way through, from Hugh Grant to the Foley artist to the film score. As the
lights came up in the theater, we turned to look at each other.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

We smiled at each other with such
naked affection that I felt embarrassed. I didn't want him to see how much I'd
needed that: to be close to someone, to breathe him in.

We left the theater and walked
toward the car. I thought he might take my hand, but he didn't. Then, once we
were in the car, I thought he'd suggest somewhere to go, maybe reference the
milk shake again. He didn't.

A few quick turns, and we were back
at my house. He was smiling faintly, like he was remembering something
pleasant, so that seemed encouraging. I decided to see the silence as
companionable.

Once the car was in park, he turned
to me. "Good movie," he said.

"It was.. .just like all the
others. Good to have an expectation fulfilled."

He laughed.

I waited for him to move toward me.
It occurred to me that he might want me to ask him in, which I couldn't do. Lil
and Charlie were in there. What if Olivia woke up? What if, for some reason,
Jon brought Jacob home instead of keeping him overnight?

"I wish I could invite you
in," I said. "It's just not a good night." But I still wanted to
be kissed. I still felt the memory of his body against mine, and now that I
knew what he smelled like up close, I could smell it from across the car. I
turned toward him in a way that said—unequivocally, in no uncertain terms—Kiss
me.

He was smiling at me, but he was immobile.
I wondered how long I could sustain this pose, with my body angled toward him
so obviously. I felt stupid, and undesirable, and, finally, irritated.
"Thanks for the movie. Good night," I said, and leapt from the car. I
didn't even give him the hug that was our standard.

Once inside the house, I sat on the
couch for several minutes, waiting. I pictured him knocking on the door, and
when I opened it, he would embrace me passionately. We'd share a first kiss
that was worthy of his smell.

I looked out the window and saw
he'd driven away. I walked down the hall to my room. Charlie's door was closed,
but I could hear the faint squeaking of the metal futon.

I slept badly, and when I woke in
the morning, there-was an e-mail from Ray. I saw it had been sent the night
before. The subject heading was "Will I ever see you again?" and in
the body of the e-mail, only the word "Please." I typed back, only
"Yes." I was smiling as I sent it.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

A few days later, I was reading in
my room, with the door closed, when Jon came by to pick up the kids. We'd kept
our interaction minimal since the therapy session, and I'd been doing my best
to keep him off my mind.

"Eve?" Charlie rapped
with his knuckles.

"Come in," I said.

He closed the door behind him and
sat on the edge of the bed, his face unusually somber. "Jon's here."

I nodded. "It's his night with
Jacob."

"He wants to talk to
you."

"Did he say what he
wants?"

"No."

I sat up straighter on the bed so
that I could see myself in the mirror. I'd hoped my medical spa
"regime" would turn me into an "After" photo by now, but I
still felt distinctly "Before." How did my hair manage to straddle
limp and frizzy at once? Not that it made any difference, really. "Tell
him to come on back."