Little Earthquakes Page 10

  He groaned out loud as she drew his index finger between her lips. Becky took a mouthful of wine, held it in her mouth, leaned forward, and kissed him, letting it trickle over his tongue. They kissed and kissed, pushing the plates away, and then Andrew was on top of her, grinding against her in the flickering candlelight, and her head was full of every good smell—wine and cheese and fresh-baked bread and the smell of his skin. “Becky,” he breathed.

  She pushed herself up onto the futon. Andrew ground himself against her.

  “Does this mean,” she gasped, “that we’re skipping the cheese course?”

  “Now,” he panted. “I can’t wait anymore.”

  “Just one more thing.” She hurried into the kitchen, past the cheeses, the honey, and the champagne she’d brought, finding his little can of mandarin oranges, popping the top, spilling the fruit and syrup into a bowl. Back in the living room, Andrew was lying on the futon, staring at her so intently she felt dizzy.

  “Dessert,” she said, as she took one of the segments of orange between her fingers, sliding it slowly into his mouth.

  He sighed. “Becky,” he murmured.

  “Just wait,” she whispered. She sent up a quick prayer that he wouldn’t burst out laughing at what she had planned next and then figured, really, would a man who’d shared his most intimate moments with a piece of rubber-backed rope-spun cotton laugh at anything? Fuck it, she thought, here goes. She pulled off her shirt, leaving only the lacy black underwire bra, and tilted the bowl, spilling a trickle of syrup down her neck, over the tops of her breasts.

  “Come here,” she said, drawing him toward her. His tongue worked hard at her neck. She eased another slippery segment down between her breasts, and he dove for it. She thought of pigs digging for truffles, pioneers sending buckets down wells, hoping for sweet, clear water. The candles flickered, sending shadows dancing across his face. She felt him, hard against her thigh, as she took a slippery segment between her teeth and kissed him, using her tongue to ease the orange between his lips. With that, she reached for his zipper, eased his pants down over his hips, and . . . Oh, my God. “Is this a joke?” she asked, staring down at him.

  “No joke,” he said, in a strangled-sounding voice as he tried to yank his pants off over his shoes.

  “It’s real?”

  “Real,” he confirmed.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Have you ever been in pornos?”

  “Just medical school,” he said, grabbing her hand.

  “How big is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come on, of course you do.”

  “I never measured.”

  “Yowza,” she said, trying not to stare. She let him wrap her fingers as far as they would go. She thought about French baguettes, still warm in their paper wrappers. She thought about plums, rice paper—–wrapped spring rolls, crepes filled with apricot jam, beggar’s purses stuffed with caviar and sour cream, every delicious thing she’d ever tasted. She wanted it to be the best blow job he’d ever had, but it quickly became apparent that it was more than likely the only blow job he’d ever had. He laced his fingers in her hair and pumped his hips so vigorously that she felt herself gagging.

  “Easy,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up.

  “Not to worry,” she told him. “Hang on. I have an idea.”

  She padded into his kitchen, opening the cupboards and the refrigerator until she found what she was looking for—the olive oil she’d been using to cook. He’d put it in the refrigerator, which was twenty-seven kinds of wrong, but she figured it would warm up quickly enough and she could lecture him later. Back in the living room, she arranged herself on the futon. “Come here,” she whispered. As he stood over her, still wearing his shirt and his shoes, she unhooked her bra, picked up the olive oil, and poured some into his hands.

  He swung himself over her, straddling her side with his thighs, rubbing himself with his oiled hands, cupping her breasts and rubbing himself between them.

  “Ah,” he said, sliding back and forth, getting the idea quickly.

  “Okay?” she whispered, as he worked himself back and forth.

  “I think . . . ,” he panted. “I need . . .”

  She poured more oil in her hand and tucked her hand underneath him, her palm rubbing against the swollen flesh as it moved back and forth over her, breathless underneath his weight.

  “Ah,” he groaned and shoved himself up on his hands. A moment later, he collapsed against her, groaning her name into her hair.

  Ten minutes later, they were spooning on the futon. “Wow,” he said. The ruins of dinner were scattered across the floor—plates still crusted with melted Gorgonzola and potatoes on the floor, half-filled, fingerprint-smeared wineglasses balanced next to his digital clock.

  “I know.”

  “Can I do anything for you?” he whispered. She shook her head. There was a worm of guilt twisting in her belly as she thought about her boyfriend, probably waiting up for her with two fillets of swordfish, white and inoffensive, in the fridge. She thought that if they didn’t actually have intercourse, it was somehow less like cheating, more like a humanitarian mission, the kind of thing ex-presidents won the Nobel Peace Prize for.

  “Becky,” Andrew whispered. “My hero.”

  “Go to sleep,” she whispered back. A minute later, still smiling, he did.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They dated for two years while Andrew did the fourth and fifth years of his residency, then when he landed a fellowship at Pennsylvania Hospital, they moved to Philadelphia. Becky convinced Sarah to dump the Marxist grad student she was dating and move with her. They pooled their savings, plus the money Becky’s father had left her, and rented the space that would become Mas. Life was wonderful. And Becky was sure she knew what was coming the night Andrew led her to the couch and sat down, holding both of her hands and looking into her eyes.

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” he began.

  “Okay,” Becky said, hoping that she’d guessed right as to what would be coming next.

  Andrew smiled and pulled her close. She closed her eyes. Here it comes, she thought and wondered if he’d bought a ring already or if they’d be shopping for one together.

  He brought his mouth close to her ear. “I’d like you to . . .”

  Be my wife, Becky’s mind filled in.

  “ . . . meet my mother,” said Andrew.

  Becky’s eyes flew open. “What?”

  “Well, I think you should meet her before we get married.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Andrew Rabinowitz, that was lame.”

  Her husband-to-be looked chastened. “Really?”

  “I insist that you do it again.”

  Andrew shrugged and dropped to his knee in front of her. “Rebecca Mara Rothstein, I will love you forever, and I want to be with you every day for the rest of my life.”

  “That’s better,” she murmured, as he pulled a black velvet box out of his pocket.

  “So that’s a yes?”

  She looked at the ring and squealed with delight. “That’s a yes,” she said. She slipped the ring on her finger and tried not to think about how even as he was proposing to her, his mother had come first.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Are you awake?” Andrew asked, nuzzling her curls.

  “Mmmmph,” Becky said and groaned, peering over her husband’s shoulder and hazarding a glance at the clock. Seven o’clock already? “Need more sleep,” she said, pulling the pillow over her head.

  “Do you want me to call Sarah and tell her you’re sick? You can stay in bed all day.”

  Becky shook her head, sighed again, and pushed herself up and out of bed. Her intention was to work right until she went into labor. Sarah, who’d agreed to serve as Becky’s doula and assist her during the birth, had raised her eyebrows. “You know best,” she said. But lately, she’d started following Becky around the tiny kitchen with the PISO MOJADO si
gn and insisting that the chefs keep a large pot of water boiling on the back burner “just in case.”

  Becky gulped down her prenatal vitamins and held out her arms. “Quickly,” she said. “While it’s just the two of us.” Andrew tilted up her chin, and they kissed. Becky’s eyes slipped shut.

  The telephone started ringing. Andrew gave a guilty start. “Let me just get that,” he said.

  Becky sighed and shook her head. She knew who was on the line without even looking at the caller ID. E-mail was Mimi’s first line of communication, and if she didn’t get a response within an hour, she’d start calling, no matter how early in the morning it was, or how late at night. And if Andrew didn’t call her right back, she’d have him paged. “What happens if you don’t return the page?” Becky had once asked. Andrew’s brow furrowed. “I guess she’d start calling hospitals. And morgues.”

  Becky curled on the couch. “Hi, Mom,” Andrew said, giving his wife an unhappy shrug. Andrew knew she didn’t like his mother much, but she didn’t think he had any sense of the way that during nights when she couldn’t sleep she’d entertain long, vivid fantasies of her mother-in-law dying of some rare disease that would render her conveniently mute before whisking her off to the land from which you couldn’t page, e-mail, phone, or fax your son every fifteen minutes. She tried not to complain about Mimi because when she did Andrew would look serious and give her a speech that inevitably began with the words Becky, she is my mother, and she does this out of love.

  It would have helped if she and Mimi had something other than Andrew in common. They didn’t. For starters, Mimi had little use for food. She was a champion noneater, a world-class under-orderer. If you asked for two poached eggs and whole-wheat toast, she’d have one poached egg and sliced tomatoes. If you were only having coffee, she’d just have water, and if you just wanted water, she’d have a glass without ice.

  And Mimi hated the little row house Becky and Andrew had bought the year before. “Your kitchen’s in the basement!” Mimi had shrieked in dismay when she’d flown in from Texas for a visit. Becky bit her lip at the spectacle of Mimi, who only ever made reservations, getting in a tizzy over the location of the kitchen. Instead, Becky pointed out the hand-glazed tile floor and the built-in bookcases that were big enough for all of her cookbooks. Andrew, wearing an old pair of scrubs, painted each floor of their house a different color—rich wine-red for the kitchen, goldenrod-yellow for the ground-floor living room, robin’s-egg blue for the third floor, where he’d put up walls, turning what had been one big bedroom into one medium-sized bedroom, a short hallway, a closet, and a sunny little nook where their baby would sleep. He’d come to bed that night with paint in his hair, and she’d told him that it was just what she’d wanted. And it was, Becky thought, as Andrew said his final good-bye to Mimi and pulled her off the couch for a hug.

  “You sure you don’t want a day off?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Can you feel that?” she asked, pressing his hand against her belly.

  Andrew nodded. Becky closed her eyes and leaned against her husband’s shoulder as the baby swam inside of her.

  June

  LIA

  “So,” my mother asked me during my ninth week under her same-as-it-ever-was roof, “are you here to stay?” She bared her teeth in the first-floor bathroom mirror, checking for lipstick. Another day, another white blouse/black slacks combo, here in the House Where Time Stood Still.

  I sat on the couch with my head bent over the basket of laundry I was folding, feeling even more off-balance than normal. I’d woken up thinking not of the baby but of Sam. In Los Angeles, there’d been a homeless woman who hung around at the corner by the gate to our apartment building in Hancock Park. Morning after morning, wearing three dirty coats in the seventy-degree weather, she’d be there, jabbing her finger in the air and talking to herself. After we’d come home from Korean barbecue one night and she’d been gesticulating wildly at our car as we drove by, Sam had made it his project to win her over. It was for my own good, he told me. “I understand that there are crazy people everywhere,” he explained, “but if there’s going to be one around the baby, I’d rather she was a benevolent crazy person.” One morning, he headed out early, in a T-shirt and jeans and a baseball cap, all cleft chin and bright blue eyes, with an apple in his hand. Ten minutes later, he came back, sans apple, with a welt on his forehead.

  “She threw it at me,” he reported, sounding both indignant and amused, and I teased him, saying she was the first woman in a long time who hadn’t been won over by his good looks and Texan charm. I’d thought that would be the end of his homeless outreach project, but every morning for two weeks he’d carry something out the door—a yogurt, a bagel, a packaged Zone meal (we’d had a huge fight about that, with me arguing that homeless, hungry people should not be given low-cal commodities and Sam saying that it wasn’t fair to treat our lady any differently than the other dieting denizens of L.A.). I don’t think she ever spoke to Sam, but I do know that she never threw anything at him again . . . and that once the baby came, when I pushed my stroller past her, she stepped back respectfully, looking at us with a hungry avidity, as if she were watching a parade.

  My mother was staring at me, looking at my gray high school–era sweatpants and washed-out Pat Benatar T-shirt with her nose scrunched. “Do you have any plans?”

  I folded a washcloth and set it in the basket. “I’m not sure.”

  “What have you been doing all day long?” I examined her voice for criticism, for her typical thinly veiled anger, but didn’t find it. Her eyes were focused on the scarf she was tying around her neck, and she just sounded curious.

  “Sleeping, mostly,” I said. It was partially true. I did sleep as often as I could, long, fuzzy hours on the Strawberry Shortcake comforter with the dusty blinds pulled down. I’d wake up from the naps with my heart thudding, a sour taste in my mouth, and my body covered in sweat, feeling less rested than I had when I’d lain down, and then I’d get into the rental car and head to the city, to the park, and to the woman I’d been . . . what? Stalking was the shameful word that surfaced in my mind. The week before I’d left a pacifier in the window box of the restaurant where she worked, but that wasn’t hurting anyone, was it?

  So what else was I doing all day long? In between four-hour naps and trips to the park, I’d been trying to compose a letter to my husband. I wasn’t sure what it should say. All I knew for sure was that Hallmark didn’t make a card for it. Dear Sam, I’d begun. I’m sorry. That was as far as I’d gotten.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” my mother asked.

  I shook my head. “Something happened,” I told her as the world started to spin. I gripped the laundry basket and shut my eyes.

  “Well, Lisa, I managed to figure out that much,” she told me. I waited for her voice to rise into the taunting singsong she’d used to such devastating effect when I was a teenager. It didn’t. “You might feel better if you talked about it,” she said. I blinked at her to make sure it was still the same old Mom—sensible shoes and neat hair, the same long, sharp nose that I had, and lipstick that would undoubtedly wind up on her teeth at some point during the day.

  “I can’t,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “Fine, then,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking,” I said, gathering the laundry. “It isn’t like you care.”

  “Oh, Lisa, don’t start that adolescent nonsense. I’m your mother. Of course I care.”

  I thought about what I could tell her and what it would do. I could imagine her face crumpling, the way she’d hold out her arms to me—Oh, Lisa! Oh, honey! Or maybe not. Maybe she’d just wipe her teeth with her finger and look at me as if I was kidding or inventing things (“Young lady, I want the truth, not one of your inventions!”). She’d looked at me a lot that way before I left. She’d looked at my father that way, before he’d left, too.

  I got to my feet, holdin
g the laundry to my chest.

  “Lisa,” she said. “I do care.” If she’d touched me—if she’d put her hand on my arm, even if she’d just looked at me, just looked—I might have told her the whole thing. But she didn’t. She glanced at her watch and picked up her car keys from the table by the door. “Here,” she said. She reached into the closet, rummaging past my junior-high-era denim jacket and one of my father’s discarded raincoats, and handed me something—a down coat, calf-length and bulky, electric blue, with snaps running up the front. “It’s cold today.”

  I looked at myself in the mirror once she was gone, seeing the circles under my eyes, the hollows in my cheeks, my greasy two-toned hair. I looked about ready to join the apple-chucking bag lady. I pulled on the coat, lay down on my tilting bed, and pulled out my cell phone. You have twenty-seven new messages, said the voice mail. Lia, it’s me. Lia, where are you? Lia, could you please . . . And then just Please. I hit “delete” twenty-seven times, and then lay there in the semidarkness, thinking about my husband. It still felt strange to think of Sam that way. We’d been dating for less than a year when we got married, and we’d only been married for ten months when I left.

  Sam and I had met at a club where we’d both been working. Sam was tending bar. My job was to open the doors of cars as they pulled up to the curb, lean down low enough to let the passengers get a good view of my cleavage, and say, “Welcome to Dane!” with a smile that suggested the possibility, if not the likelihood, of hot anonymous sex in the ladies’ room.

  “Not Dane’s!” the owner had screamed at the six model/actresses he’d hired, as five o’clock approached. “It’s not Dane’s; it’s just Dane! Welcome to Dane! Let me hear you say it!”

  “Welcome to Dane,” we’d chanted.

  “We’re like the world’s best-looking Hare Krishnas,” I said an hour later, leaning surreptitiously against the bar with one high heel slipped off so I could massage a blister in progress.