18
With shaky fingers, I text Ethan that I have a few hours. He tells me to come over. I don’t want him to see me like this. I want him to flirt with me through a fence and say something about my being the one. I want him to give me a look that tells me we’re in on the same joke. But maybe now that he’s seen me around Pete, that’s too much to ask. I’m not the Ali Morris he remembers.
I find him seated on a box in the middle of the living room surrounded by other boxes. “I literally can’t start,” he says.
“It’s a lot,” I say, as I do to every client when they shut down. I acknowledge their feelings and then inspire them to move forward. I saw this in a YouTube video on personal coaching.
“Are you okay?” he asks, getting up and walking toward me. I have the sense that he’s going to reach out for me and then doesn’t.
“I’m fine. Pete’s an ass.”
“Didn’t he take the kids?”
“He did, but he also did this thing. It’s this dismissive thing. It’s hard to explain.” He narrows his eyes at me, like he’s concerned. His face is so open, like he’s ready to take in whatever I have to tell him. It’s almost hypnotic, the way that draws me in. But I don’t want to be this Ali right now, the one who was just told to relax in front of her children. I straighten my shoulders. “We’re going to make four piles—one to keep, one to throw out, one to donate, and one to sell.” I still feel the adrenal rush of wanting to murder Pete with my bare hands, and saying these words that I’ve said a million times in my calming voice is settling me.
“Okay,” he says. “Where do we start?”
“How about with the box you were sitting on?”
He stretches his arms over his head. His T-shirt rides up and reveals a bit of his sculpted stomach. I take in a little breath at the sight of it and shift my attention to the box.
“How long can you stay?” he asks.
“I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe more.”
“He didn’t tell you when he’s bringing them back?”
“No.” I rip the tape off and pull out a bubble-wrapped ceramic turtle. “And I’m super pissed off. At him, at myself.”
He turns to me, and I really don’t want to hear what he has to say.
“I know, Scooter. I used to be in control. I get it. Now, keep, toss, donate, or sell?”
We work in relative silence. (He keeps the ceramic turtle, which is adorable). At first I empty boxes and ask which pile he wants things in. Then he starts opening his own boxes and making decisions without me. He gets three phone calls, which he takes in the kitchen. I can’t hear what he’s saying but I can tell by the tone of his voice that it’s personal, that he’s placating someone. I wonder if it’s the old girlfriend and think he must have been exceptionally unreliable to keep her from wanting to run her hands across his stomach all day. I’m sure she’s blond. She’s completely put together in outfits entirely made of silk because, of course, she doesn’t sweat. She buys designer toilet paper just two rolls at a time and has never set foot in a Costco. Just the thought of her and her fancy toilet paper makes me want to wring that ceramic turtle’s neck.
His phone rings again, and he takes it in front of me. “Hey,” he says. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll see if Vince can come fix it in the morning. Okay. Thanks.” And he hangs up.
“Everything okay?” I ask, because I’m nosy and also delighted that that didn’t sound romantic.
“Yeah, fine. It’s just some kids I know from skateboarding. The lock on the skate park fence is broken.”
“Ah, and I know how strongly you object to breaking and entering.”
“It’s the amateurs that break the locks,” he says. “I’m a pro.”
He opens a box that holds an old adding machine, a cowboy hat, and a set of porcelain chopsticks. He shakes his head and puts the whole box in the donation pile.
“But why are they calling you about the lock?” There was something so casual about the way he spoke to whoever was calling.
“They call me for everything. I told you, I’m a problem solver. I’m like their uncle who knows how to get things done.”
“And you know them from skateboarding?”
“Everything I know, I know from skateboarding.”
By five, I still haven’t heard from Pete, and we’ve emptied two of the oak cabinets in the living room. We’ve only found a handful of things he wants to keep. It’s a critical rule of cleaning things out that you stop every few hours for a major break. If you go too long, you stop looking at what you’re sorting through and just start throwing everything away. I call it StuffFatigue™, and it’s a real problem.
Ethan seems like he’s in the zone, but I get two beers from the kitchen and tell him it’s quitting time. “Thank God,” he says, and follows me out to the patio. It’s a cloudless day and the early evening sun is making the pool sparkle. No one should be inside going through boxes.
We plop down in our two facing armchairs. “A happy life accumulates a lot of stuff,” he says.
“Any kind of life does,” I say, and we drink to that.
“I bet your house is organized like a military locker.”
I choke back a little beer. “No.”
“Seriously?”
“The cobbler’s children have no shoes,” I say.
“Fascinating.”
“It’s a lot easier to work through other people’s problems. I think I must be very attached to my own.”
Ethan’s looking at me like he’s waiting for me to say more. He has a nice way of knowing when to dig and when to give a little space. I wonder again what’s so wrong with him that his girlfriend broke up with him. Now that I’ve seen two square inches of his stomach, it makes less sense than ever. “So why’d your girlfriend break up with you?” I ask.
He shrugs. “The usual reason.”
“Your fashion sense?”
He smiles, and I love that we have a joke. “I need to grow up.”
“Because of the skateboarding?” I ask. This blonde doesn’t know anything about what’s sexy. “There must be more.”
“I didn’t prioritize the relationship.”
I look at him for a minute, registering his steady gaze and the gift of his undivided attention. He seems like a person who takes care of things that matter to him: his dog, his car, his parents’ belongings. I wonder what mattered to him more than his relationship with this annoying woman.
My phone beeps, and it’s Pete: Great game, Iris scored two. I’m going to take them for dinner and then to sleep at my place. Text you in the morning.
I’m delighted that they had a great game and that I don’t have to make dinner. “Pete’s keeping them overnight,” I say. I lift my eyes to his and see all the possibilities associated with what I’ve just said dance across his face.
“Oh,” he says, finally, and then goes inside.
I am free for the entire night. I am a single woman, free for the night. I’m glad he’s left me alone because my breathing has gone uneven, and I need to get up and pace a little. I circle the pool once while Iris texts a full play-by-play of the game.
Ethan comes back out with a plate of sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and sliced salami. Under his arm is a baguette. “Look, a picnic,” he says. He walks over to the outdoor kitchen and pulls two wineglasses from the cupboard. He opens the wine refrigerator, chooses a white, and carefully opens the bottle.
He sits down and pours us each a glass. My senses are on high alert. I can actually feel my heart beating in my chest. My mind is scanning the situation for clues as to what’s coming next. Beer, my mind tells me, is for friends hanging out. Wine is a date.
I need to get a grip. There is no reason for me to feel afraid of the way I want to run the tips of my fingers along the inside of his forearm. I have not been attracted to a man in so long that I am becoming obsessed with this guy’s forearms. I laugh a little at that. I must be losing my mind.
“What?” He sits down and pours us each a glass of wine and I rip off a piece of the baguette.
“This is just so lovely.”
“Thank you,” he says. “Why would that be funny?”
I rip off another piece of the baguette and make a little sandwich out of the mozzarella and salami. He’s watching me. He’s assumed what I now know is his you-have-my-full-attention pose. Leaning forward, golden forearms resting on thighs. It feels like an invitation to spill my guts.
“It’s just that you’re this man with wine and the lovely food, and then you’re also Scooter who stole the ice cream sandwiches.”
“It was a dare. People really need to let that go. I was fourteen, and I did my time.”
I smile and look down at my wine. “You really helped me yesterday,” I say. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve felt supported like that, like someone was in my corner.”
“I’m glad I got to be there, but you could have totally handled that on your own.”
There’s no way. “I’m not so sure,” I say, and now wish that I hadn’t steered the conversation back in this direction. I want him to lean forward again so that I can study his eyelashes, darker than his hair.
“Of course you could,” he says. “You’re the architect of your own experience.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That was in my high school graduation speech. ‘I am the architect of my own experience.’ ” Of course he would have been at Frannie’s and my graduation. “I can’t believe you remember that.” I can feel all of those nerves again and the way my mom fixed my cap and hugged me before I lined up with my classmates. I was so nervous, and she told me I was going to knock ’em dead.
“It really resonated with me. I was a sophomore and was hanging out with total screwups because I didn’t know what else to do. And my parents had pretty low expectations of me after the basement fire and, of course, my failure as a football star. Those words sort of made me realize I didn’t have to keep being who everyone thought I was forever.”
“Wow,” I say. I try to remember what sort of experience I was hoping to create when I wrote that speech.
“It’s funny how you’re meeting me for the first time, and I’ve known you forever,” he says. He leans forward again, so I do too. He’s very close, and I can feel that crackle between us, like the air is suddenly thick. One thing I know for sure—I am no longer numb. I can feel his eyes on mine. I can feel the space between our mouths. The longer we linger here, the more intense it gets, and I find myself moving by half millimeters toward him and then back again, just to feel the crackle against my lips.
“You know,” he says, and I can almost feel his mouth as it moves. “I have a thing where I won’t kiss a woman who refuses to call me by my real name.”
He’s looking me right in the eye, waiting. His eyes are searching mine for an answer, and I’m sure he sees it there. I have wanted to kiss him since the moment my dog peed on him. He smiles at me the tiniest bit, and I smile back. “Ethan,” I say.
I’ve barely gotten the word out before his mouth is on mine and my lips part and I am lost. His hands wind through the back of my hair and pull at my neck to bring me closer. I underestimated the thrill of kissing someone for the first time. I didn’t account for the taste of him and the brush of his slight stubble against my face. I did not consider what it would feel like to breathe in his scent up close, my fingertips tightening on his shouldery shoulders. I have the sense that I could eat this man. Everything around us has gone quiet, the kind of quiet when the pin’s been pulled from the grenade. Just before the explosion.
He deepens the kiss and I hear myself groan. He pulls away, my face in his hands, and looks me in the eye. His breaths are shallow. “Wow,” he says. He brushes his thumb over my swollen lips and I feel it throughout my body. After a few beats he says, “I’m going swimming.” It’s a dare, and I wonder if he knows that right now I would follow him anywhere.
He gets up, takes off his shirt, and walks to the pool steps. I run my eyes across his shoulders and his chest, and I know that he knows I’m watching him. His eyes catch mine and we both know I’ll never call him Scooter again. I finish my wine, and without thinking about it, I take off my shorts and T-shirt and dive into the pool in my bra and underwear. The water shocks my already heightened senses, and I love the delicious way it moves across my skin. When I’m close to the bottom of the pool and the cool water has touched every part of me, I realize that I forgot to be self-conscious about my perfectly fine body. I forgot to notice what underwear I was wearing. Most of it comes from a package of six that I get at Costco, cotton in shades of beige with one blue pair that’s particularly dowdy. In February and September it’s on sale, so I stock up. At this moment I don’t feel like a woman who buys her lingerie at the same place she buys laundry detergent and peanut butter pretzel bites.
I come up for air, and he’s getting into the pool. I swim from the deep end, underwater, to where he’s standing submerged to his shoulders. It’s too deep for me to stand so I place my hands on his shoulders to stay afloat. There’s some reality where my holding on to him is just playful. Or me trying not to drown. He looks at me like he thinks this is neither of those things and puts his arms around my back.
“So,” I say, and wrap my arms around his neck.
“Yes?” He pulls me close so that our stomachs are touching. I can feel this going from zero to sixty very quickly. My body is screaming at me to jump in, but I need to contain it.
“This,” I say, and gesture between us, “this is a summer romance.” My voice catches as he moves his mouth down my wet neck.
“It’s whatever you want,” he says, right before he presses his lips to mine, first featherlight and then with intent.
“Can this just be kissing?” I ask against his mouth.
“Yes. Whatever you want, Ali Morris. I mean it.” He kisses me again.
“It will get so complicated otherwise.” I’m saying this thing, which is intended to slow us down, while exploring his bottom lip with my mouth.
He nods.
“And no touching in public. My kids.”
“Okay, I’ll just keep you here,” he says against my skin, and I shiver. I move my hands down his back, exploring the muscles there and feeling his breathing speed up as I do.
There’s a beeping, and it reminds me of the sound of my alarm during a really good dream. He keeps kissing me and I keep pressing myself against him. Then I hear the beeping again. It’s my phone.
I kiss him quickly and move toward the steps. He grabs my hand and pulls me back toward him. “You don’t need to get it.”
“I have kids. I always need to get it.” I squeeze his hand and get out of the pool.
It’s Pete, of course: Just hooked up with a group that’s doing a super-early ride tomorrow morning through Manhattan. Going to drop them off after dinner.
Ethan’s gotten out of the pool and is holding a towel out to me. “Pete wants to bring the kids home,” I say.
“Ah, better deal?”
“Basically,” I say.
“What did you say?”
“I haven’t replied yet.” I’m looking up at him for direction. At my core, I am a mother; my instinct is to put on my clothes and race to where they are, to wrap myself around them in case they’ve picked up on the fact that they’ve been dumped for a bike ride. I hate the idea that they feel like I always did, like they are his second-choice activity. And yet my skin is wet in the night air and wants to be pressed up against Ethan, feeling his chest against mine. I want his lips on my neck. In this instant I understand want in a way I haven’t before, an irrational shedding of all other thoughts besides: I want that feeling again. I reach out and rest my hand on his wet chest.
I feel him take a quick breath.
“I have to go,” I say.
“Don’t,” he says, stepping into my hand, increasing the pressure between us.
Leaving is the last thing I want to do, but I pull away because I think of Cliffy walking into the kitchen and expecting me to be there. “So was this our second date?” I ask. “Do people kiss on the second date?”
“Yes, it’s a rule,” he says. He runs a hand down the length of my waist and I feel it all the way down through my legs. “This was a great date. My fourteen-year-old self can’t believe I got Ali Morris half-naked in the pool.” He grabs a towel and wraps it tightly around me.