They had been spending the nights in his room. It was bigger, for one thing—an addition to the back of the house sometime in the 1950s, with light coming in from three sides. It had a sliding glass door that went out to the back. Technically, the room didn’t count as a bedroom when Joanna bought the house, with no real closet or heater vents, so she had settled herself in the one official bedroom when she first moved in.
But now she preferred this room. Malcolm had taken the iron bars off the windows and refinished the floors himself. With his bed, desk, plants, and books—and a space heater—he’d made it the best part of the house. Joanna crept out from under the covers, shivering as her bare skin came into contact with the chilly fall air. Wrapped in a blanket, she curled up on a chair under a window, watching raindrops hit the glass and slide down. She turned back to the bluish light of the room and watched Malcolm sleep.
“Hey,” he murmured, half-opening his eyes. “What are you doing up? Come back here.” He opened up the covers, inviting her in.
She climbed back into bed. Malcolm tightened his arms around her, and she burrowed into him, trying to siphon off his warmth. “Mm,” he said. His eyes were closed again.
“I was just thinking.” She nudged him and waited until he mumbled something to prove he was awake, listening. “If we’re going to keep doing this, shouldn’t we set some ground rules?”
Malcolm groaned. He opened his eyes. “No.” Then he kissed her and she kissed him back and then he made her forget why that had seemed like such a great idea in the dark of a rainy morning.
She supposed they were doing just fine without rules, without a plan. The last couple weeks stretched out; it felt like they’d been this way forever. As soon as they walked in the door, they sought each other out, dropped everything to cling together, press their faces against each other, tear off their clothes and fall into bed—where they would stay until one of them would have to leave again, looking up at the clock with surprise, never quite sure what time of day it was—just suddenly realizing one of them or both of them needed to be somewhere, that they had some sort of hazy obligation out there, in the outside world.
And a few times they ventured out there, together—they walked around the neighborhood or ate out at a restaurant or attended a matinee on a drizzly weekend afternoon. By some unspoken agreement, they didn’t touch each other on those outings. It felt like an elaborate ruse, a trick they were playing on everyone, strangers. The people they passed by on their walks, the restaurant-goers, the teenagers sitting next to them in the movie theater—no one had any idea that Malcolm and Joanna led a different life on the inside. The two of them walked side by side, an inch or more of space between them, they sat across from each other at the restaurant table. Exercises in restraint—a game.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, locked the door safely behind them, inside again, they turned to each other, fumbled with zippers, with boots and hats, left trails of clothes in wet heaps, clung to each other as if they’d just survived a flood.
Malcolm had just drizzled honey on her nipples when the blindfold slipped and she caught a glimpse of the clock on the kitchen wall. She tore off the blindfold, which, up until this afternoon, served as a red-checked cloth napkin. “We’re late!” she cried.
Now that her vision had been restored, she could see Malcolm eyeing her chest with dread. “Too sticky,” he said. “Too sweet.”
“You don’t have time to lick it off me anyway,” Joanna said, trying to catch the excess drips with her hands. “Ugh! What a mess.”
They both took a dispirited look around the kitchen. They’d spread an old shower curtain out on the floor, but still, it was difficult staying neat while licking jam, whipped cream and strawberries, and chocolate pudding off each other’s bodies—especially while blindfolded.
“We can cross this one off the list,” Malcolm said. He took her by the hand and helped her to standing.
“Way off.”
The List had started as a joke. It still was a joke almost two weeks later—probably. Now Joanna was not quite so sure. Come here, Joanna had said to him that first morning they woke up next to each other. I still haven’t gotten you out of my system. After that, lying in bed or on the floor, tangled up in blankets, they would look at each other and laugh, and say, that as wonderful as that was, it hadn’t been enough. They still needed more of each other. So what would it take, exactly, to fill them up? What could they do to exhaust themselves of each other? Or were they stuck wanting each other like this, frantic and desperate, eyes glazed over, mouths frothing?
We could lock ourselves in for a week, Joanna suggested, and do nothing but have sex. No television, no talking. What about eating and sleeping? Malcolm had asked. Joanna thought about it. Only water and protein bars. Four hours’ sleep a night. No, that wouldn’t be the way to do it, Malcolm decided. Locked in the house was no good—they needed to get out. Sex in a public bathroom, for example. Or in an airplane.
And somehow during these conversations the List became real. They had actually taken out a piece of paper and began working on it, absentmindedly, both drawing or writing in the margins until it looked like a note you’d pass back and forth during a junior high math class. Tiny writing, doodles, no attention to the ruled lines of the paper. Scratched out, re-written.
The joke was that they would work their way through the list until they were sick of each other: lock themselves up for a week, have sex in a public bathroom and in an airplane, spray whipped cream on each other 9 ½ Weeks’ style, do it in an elevator, on a bridge, in a tree, in a field, in a snow cave, in a movie theater, in the teahouse at the Chinese Gardens.
The list was growing so big there was no way they could complete it. This thought nagged at Joanna, but then she dismissed it. The List was obviously make-believe. A fantasy. Maybe this was how to do it, how to get each other out of their systems, to imagine it unfolding like this. They were never going to make love on a bed of moss at the end of a rainbow.
“Let’s get you into the shower. Hose you down,” Malcolm said. Twenty-five minutes later they were seated at the corner of a square table in the middle of a restaurant in the Mount Tabor neighborhood. The restaurant was dark, the periwinkle walls adorned with gilded mirrors and large-faced clocks. Joanna kept losing the thread of the conversation, so intent was she on ignoring Malcolm, his hair falling in front of his eyes in that way she had always found so charming. She watched him as she sipped her drink—some mouth-puckering concoction of chili-infused vodka, coconuts, and lemongrass—and waited for him to lift up a hand, sweep the hair out of his eyes as he always did. “Don’t you think so, Joanna?” her sister was saying.
“What?” Joanna tried to focus on her sister and Ted, sitting across from them, staring at Joanna expectantly. Apples—they’d been discussing apples for the last several minutes. It had been an excellent apple season, and there were so many different local varieties. Joanna started nodding with enthusiasm. “Yes,” she said. “I am in love with Honeycrisps!”
Her sister frowned. Laura had been shooting Joanna quizzical looks since they arrived. And she and Ted had been acting strangely, bowing their heads together and whispering. They were on to Malcolm and Joanna!—they must be. Malcolm kicked her under the table.
“We were talking about the bark beetle infestation,” Ted said. He put his arm around Laura, as if to protect his wife from a descending swarm.
“Bark beetles?” Her mind went blank. She had absolutely nothing to say about bark beetles.
But she was saved by the arrival of menus. Laura and Ted were now huddled together over a single menu, murmuring inaudibly. This was the type of behavior that married couples often exhibited that had a way of making single people feel especially sad and alone. This time, however, Joanna was not bothered by it. Ted and Laura could have their mumbled conversations, inside jokes, and flirtatious looks. She had recently figured something out: it was all just an act. Married people had this desperate need to broadcast their choice to the rest of the world. Everyone knew they were bored, unhappy—yet, perversely, they had a sadistic desire to pull all the sexually liberated singles in to join their ranks, as if to validate their own dubious death-do-us-part decision making.
“Everyone ready to order?” the server asked after reciting the specials and bringing another round of oddly-flavored drinks. The server was perhaps thirty, with straightened, blunt-cut bangs and an extremely tight shirt. She leaned in to hear Joanna place her order, making every effort to afford Malcolm an excellent view of her ample cleavage. She turned to Ted and Laura, and Ted ordered for the two of them, explaining that they would split the smoked trout salad and also share the panko-crusted chicken.
“Maybe you should order a large drink with that,” Joanna said. “Two straws.”
Everyone ignored her. The server was laughing at something Malcolm was saying. She touched his shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen.
Joanna caught Malcolm’s eye and Malcolm shrugged, then suppressed a smile. He tapped the side of his head, above his ear, and Joanna’s hand went up to the same spot on her own head. She pulled a strawberry leaf from her hair and discreetly hid it under her napkin.
Joanna leaned in so Malcolm could hear her above the noise of the restaurant. “Do you know her?”
“Who?”
“Our waitress.”
“No. Why would I?”
Joanna’s foot found Malcolm’s under the table. “She was into you,” Joanna whispered, so Ted and Laura couldn’t hear. They were still huddled together, anyway, lost in their conversation. “She wanted you.”
“Hmm,” Malcolm said. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Joanna excused herself to go to the restroom at the end of a narrow hallway. She straightened her hair in the mirror, then washed her hands, splashed her face with cold water, slapped her cheeks to get the color going in them. All this sex over the last couple weeks had created a rather frazzled effect on her—her eyes glassy, her hair tousled, face pale, as if she hadn’t been exposed to daylight, locked away in a vampire’s den. She dried her face with a paper towel and applied some lip gloss.
Malcolm was standing outside, waiting for her. “I had to go to the bathroom, too,” he said. He pressed her up against the wall and leaned down to kiss her. “You taste like jam.”
She towed him in by his shirt. His hand traveled up her back, reached behind her and unclasped her bra with one hand. His other hand slipped under her top, crept up to her bare chest.
Laughing, she pushed him off her and cast a swift look around to make sure no one had seen them. With some difficulty, she refastened her bra and then tucked in her shirt, rearranged her hair. “What was that, some high school party trick?” Her head shook in mock disapproval.
“More like sixth grade.” He leaned in for one more kiss.
She squinted up at him and swept his hair out of his eyes, then ran her thumb over his lips. “We can’t go back there wearing the same lip gloss.” She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt with her hands and she walked back down the stairs to talk about apples, or bark beetles, or whatever the topic had become.
The next week was Thanksgiving. The alarm went off at five, when it was still dark. Their bodies had drifted from each other in the night, but at the sound of the alarm, they found each other under the covers and promptly dropped back to sleep, listening to the sound of rain on the roof. When Joanna woke up she was alone and the sky was gray, crowded with rainclouds. She wrapped a blanket around her and stumbled into the kitchen. The kitchen was bright and warm, already smelling of toast and coffee and cinnamon.
Malcolm was rolling out dough. He had ambitions to make three different kinds of pie. Half a pie per person! But he was determined. She watched him for a moment before pouring herself a cup of coffee. “I can’t be expected to help make pies at five in the morning without caffeine.” She rested her head against his arm and watched his hands piece together scraps of dough.
“Well, it’s nine-thirty.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I’m on schedule.” She took that as permission to arrange herself in the nook, to read a book and drink coffee while he worked.
Joanna’s phone rang as they were stepping out the door. “That was Ted,” she announced a moment later. “Thanksgiving is canceled.” She set her tray of vegetables and a pumpkin pie with a pecan crumble topping on the coffee table and perched on the arm of the couch.
Malcolm was balancing a French apple pie in one hand, a cranberry cheesecake in the other. “What? Why?”
Joanna shook her head. “Laura isn’t feeling well. This doesn’t sound like her at all. She would have to be almost dead to cancel Thanksgiving. You know what I think it is? She’s onto us. She’s punishing me now.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it.”
“They were acting kind of strange at the restaurant, didn’t you think?”
“No stranger than usual.”
“We should go over there anyway. They’re probably having Thanksgiving dinner without us.”
“Why would they do that?”
“They’re onto us!”
Malcolm set his pies next to the vegetable tray. “Maybe she really is sick.”
“I’m calling her.” She let it ring and ring until it clicked over to voicemail. “She knows about us!” Joanna unbuttoned her coat and threw it on the ground. “I knew it!”
“I doubt that’s it,” Malcolm said.
“You’re being naïve.”
He laughed then. “I don’t think so.”
Joanna narrowed her eyes. “All right. You know something, don’t you?
“I just doubt she’s sick, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Just something I figured out, I guess you could say.”
“Okay … What?”
“I’ll bet she’s pregnant.”
Malcolm nodded. “Sure. It makes sense.”
“It does?”
“I could be wrong.”
“Do pregnant women usually refrain from hosting Thanksgiving dinner? This is Laura we’re talking about. I can’t believe she’d leave us out on the streets.”
“We’re hardly out on the streets. And we have the most important part of the meal: the pies.”
“You mean the veggie tray.”
“Right.”
They soon had a roaring fire going and a tablecloth spread out on the floor. They sat cross-legged in front of the fire in their good clothes, two pies, the cheesecake, and the crudités between them. The silver vegetable tray glinted in the firelight. Joanna had taken out their best cups and saucers—the ones without chips, whose handles hadn’t cracked off—and made them cups of tea.
Several minutes passed with only the sounds of the crackling fire, forks clicking against tin pie pans. “Is making love on the floor in front of a roaring fire on the List?” Joanna asked.
“It was,” he said. Their eyes met and then they laughed.
“Oh yeah.”
“Must not have been very memorable,” he said.
“Oh, it was memorable all right. I just didn’t know if it was on the List, or if it was—what do you call it?—extracurricular.”
“Having sex on a tray of vegetables is not on the List.”
“That’s probably for the best.” Joanna took a bite of cranberry cheesecake right out of the spring form pan and then took a careful sip of lukewarm tea. “So,” she said, “what makes you think Laura is pregnant?”
“Just a few careful observations. She didn’t order a drink at dinner, for one thing.”
“Maybe she just didn’t want to drink. I don’t always order a drink when we go out.”
“Yes you do.”
“Okay, but does Laura?”
“Usually. And Laura’s bra size had probably doubled since we last saw her.”
“Good to know you’re keeping tabs on my sister’s bra size.” Joanna watched the flames flicker over Malcolm’s face. He gave her a small, mischievous smile. “Well—”
“I guess I’ve always known you find her so much more beautiful than me….”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“You said it! The very first night we met.”
“I said that? And you still made out with me?”
Joanna shrugged. “I admired your candor.”
“It’s not true. Please forgive me.” He ran a finger along the side of her face. “I’m not even into blondes.”
“I wasn’t offended.”
“You should have been. Let me make it up to you.” Malcolm moved the half-eaten pies and the withered vegetables onto the coffee table and turned to Joanna. She let him take her into his arms and kiss her.
She settled into his arms and watched the sparks crackle off the burning logs in the fireplace. He stroked her hair and her eyes closed. “I’m not sure abstaining from alcohol and expanding boobs mean my sister is having a baby,” she said drowsily.
“Well … that, and Ted told me.”
“What?” Joanna’s eyes shot open and she whirled around to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Laura tell me?”
“He made me promise not to say anything. They wanted to make some sort of big announcement when she got to twelve weeks.”
“How long have you known?”
“Only two days! He let it slip out when I went over there to pick up that sanding belt.” Malcolm put his arm around Joanna, trying to draw her back to him. “I think they wanted to make some sort of big announcement at the restaurant last weekend, but they chickened out for some reason.”
“I can’t believe this. My own sister. I’m going to call her.” She patted the floor in search of her phone.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You should be thanking your sister.”
“Thanking her? Why?” The fire was getting low—one black log sent out a ribbon of smoke.
“For leaving us to fend for ourselves on Thanksgiving. A vegetable platter and three pies. What more could we possibly need or want?”
Joanna frowned, considering the question. Then she threw another log onto the fire, sending a spray of ash flying out onto the hearth.