Jessie rode the subway downtown from Columbus Circle. The train was packed at rush hour. Standing the whole way, she found herself thinking first about bodies, then feet, then food.
When she got off at her stop, Houston and Varick, she heard a sloppy clatter like applause overhead. She timidly went up the stairs toward the noise.
Rain fell through the sky like a curtain of needles. It bounced all over the sidewalk like marbles. The street was bright with rain, varnished with wet. People crowded together in doorways, looking, waiting, then dashing to the next doorway and waiting some more. Cars and trucks kicked up a dense spray like smoke. The gutters and puddles teemed with bubbles.
Jessie grabbed a newspaper from a trash can, covered her head, and ran. It was a warm city rain, with a peculiarly sweet smell of iron. Her building was three blocks away on Vandam Street. Fucking Mother Nature, she told herself. But it was only rain, only water. She began to laugh at herself. She was soaked when she reached her front stoop. She shook herself off in the vestibule like a wet dog.
The neighborhood was a limbo zone of factory lofts, office buildings, and town houses, south of the Village, west of SoHo. Her building was a five-floor walk-up shelved like an old book between two printing plants. There were rumors that Leontyne Price lived in a town house across the street, but Jessie had never seen her.
She climbed the steep stairs to the top floor.
Her home was an illegal sublet with no lease, a shower in the kitchen, and a toilet in the hall. But it was all hers.
The front door opened directly into the bedroom, which was dark. The windows faced air shafts, and the place was in shadow even on good days. There was the loft bed overhead that Charlie had built, strong and solid. He was a better carpenter than a husband. The kitchen was on the left, the living room on the right: a square space with a ratty sofa, a spongy easy chair patterned like a cow, and a stage-prop fireplace from a production of A Doll’s House. The bookcases flanking the mantel were full of videos, mostly old movies taped off cable. Over the mantel hung a framed poster for Venus in Furs, an art nouveau woodcut of a female face in a mink halo. “Like Mame with a whip,” Caleb joked when he gave her the poster.
Jessie turned on lights, then music, then took a shower. The spray from the faucet joined the soothing crackle of rain outside. She pulled on panties and a sweatshirt so she could be comfortable while she decided what to do this evening. She considered calling Greta, her downstairs neighbor, but Greta was out of town. She was sorry she hadn’t suggested dinner to Allegra, but she’d reached her Allegra quotient for the day. Sex, sex, sex: that’s all Allegra would want to talk about; Jessie was tired of sex talk. She was sorry that Frank had rehearsal tonight. But she didn’t need anyone. She could stay in.
There was some broccoli in garlic sauce in a plastic tub in the refrigerator. She sniffed it—it seemed safe—and stuck it in the microwave. She went out to the living room and found the book she’d been reading, Hope Against Hope by Nadezhda Mandelstam. A memoir of Russian poets under Stalin—Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, and others—it had been recommended by Caleb, another of those sad artist biographies he read whenever he was blue. Jessie curled up on the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her bottom and entered a harsh world where people wore rubber raincoats, ate hard-boiled eggs, wrote harrowing love poems, and betrayed one another to the secret police. It sure put things in perspective.
The microwave began to beep. The phone rang.
She answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Jessie?” Rain sizzled like static. “Hi. It’s Frank.”
“Oh hi!” She was surprised by how pleased she was to hear from him.
“I was downtown after work. Happen to be around the corner. Thought I’d call to see if you’re free. You eaten yet?”
“I’m eating now.” But she wasn’t. Not yet. Why did she say she was? “Hey. Why don’t you come join me? Pick up something at the diner on the corner, then come up here and we can eat together.”
“Oh?” He hesitated. “All right. Sure. Need anything?”
“No. I’m fine. See you shortly.” Click.
What was Frank doing down here? He didn’t just happen to be around the corner. He should be uptown rehearsing. He had come to see her, of course. But had he come to talk? Or for more? She was surprised by how quickly her body wanted a larky, friendly fuck.
She turned off the lamp in the living room, then turned it back on. It was still light outside despite the rain. She didn’t want the room to be pitch-dark, but everything looked shabby in the electric glare. She considered brushing her hair and pulling on jeans. Nyaah. She felt kind of sexy in the sweatshirt that hung over her panties like a miniskirt. But she slid Hope Against Hope under the sofa, for fear Frank would think she was way too serious.
He buzzed sooner than expected.
“That was quick,” she called down on the intercom.
“I didn’t need much.”
She buzzed him in. A moment later, he knocked.
She opened her door. “Howdy.”
And there he was. He was still dressed for work in a coat and white shirt but no tie. He held a paper bag in one hand. A small, cheap collapsible umbrella hung from the other hand like a dead bat.
“I didn’t know if you’d be home,” he said. “But I figured I had nothing to lose.” His gaze drifted down, then snapped up again.
And Jessie thought: This is Frank. What was I thinking? I can’t just fuck Frank. She was sorry that she hadn’t pulled on jeans. She didn’t look sexy, but lazy, slobby, slutty.
“Come on in,” she said. “Make yourself at home.”
He left his umbrella on the floor in the hall and strolled in. He glanced up at the loft bed. His feet made a slurping, sucking sound.
“Wasn’t there rehearsal tonight?”
“Dwight and Chris and Melissa had a cater job. So I just rehearsed Toby.” He entered the living room, saw the sofa, then the cow chair. “You can be only so long with Toby without going nuts.”
He went to the cow chair and sat there. No, he didn’t want to fuck tonight either.
“I just put my food back in the microwave,” said Jessie. “Would you like something to drink? Beer? Tea? There might be some wine.”
“Beer sounds good.”
She went into the kitchen, took out her broccoli, and opened a Rolling Rock. No, no, no, she told herself. Let’s have a nice friendly talk and save the other stuff for another night.
When she returned, Frank was sitting in the cow chair, looking at her tapes in the bookcase and eating an apple. That was all he had in his paper bag, an apple.
“You have some good movies here.”
“That’s right. You’ve never been here.”
“No, we’ve been to my place, but not yours.” He smiled at her when he took the beer, a nervous, worried smile.
She sat on the sofa and stuck a forkful of broccoli in her mouth.
He had come to her tonight. He was in her space. That must be why he had such sexual weight. Horniness kept changing its mind.
“I hate to ask this but—” He looked at her more seriously. “Do you mind if I take off my shoes and socks?”
“What?”
“They’re sopping.”
She laughed. “Like I’m formal?” She tugged her sweatshirt over her knees. “Go ahead. Be comfortable. It’s not like we’re strangers.”
He tugged at the laces of his tennis shoes.
“Southerners,” she teased. “You’re so fucking polite.”
He made a face as he unpeeled his socks. “Hey. I lost my manners back when I lost my accent.” His feet were white and soggy.
“Uh-uh. You still have the manners.” Was that what was wrong with Frank? He was too nice? “But you’re right. You have almost no accent. How come?”
“I’ve been doing theater since high school in Memphis. It just rinsed out on its own.” He shrugged. “How’s your mom? You saw her on Sunday?”
“Crazy as ever. Let’s not talk about her. You sure you don’t want more to eat than just an apple?”
“Not hungry. I could lose some weight. Nine-to-five jobs are fattening. I eat lunch just to get out of the office.”
He was right about his weight. She wouldn’t contradict him there. “You poor guy. I hate to think of you giving your days to a stupid stockbroker.”
“No worse than you giving your days to Henry Lewse.”
She sighed. “But he’s theater. He’s a way to get close to something I love.”
“If you were me, you’d know to run from it.”
“Get out of here. You love theater. You have a gift for directing.”
“I don’t have any gift.”
“You do. You just need some luck to go with your gift.”
He looked at her, surprised, even touched. He took another bite of apple, another swig of beer. “Cute outfit you’re wearing.”
“Thought you’d never notice.” She knew he was flirting only because their talk had gotten too serious, but she didn’t want to be serious either. “Oh! You won’t believe what Allegra told me today!”
“What?”
“Oh—No, forget it. It’s not that interesting.”
Just in time, she recognized what was at stake. This was not just fun gossip. She could not betray Allegra. And she should not spook Frank by tattling about the love lives of his actors.
“Hey,” she said. “Your trousers are soaked.”
And they were: black up to the knees.
“Only the cuffs.”
“You can take them off too, you know.”
He looked down at his slacks, then up at her. “But if I do that, I might give us the wrong idea.”
She hadn’t intended her proposal to be sexual. But it was, wasn’t it? She grinned. “And what’s wrong about that idea?”
“Nothing. Except it’s a weeknight. We get so little time together, I thought it might be nice to just talk.”
“Yes. Good. Right. That’s what I want too,” she claimed. “Do whatever makes you comfortable.”
He looked skeptical, maybe of her words, maybe of his own.
“But if you want me to be comfortable—” he said.
And he stood up. He turned his back to her. He unbuckled and unzipped. He stepped out of his trousers and there was a glimpse of off-white boxer shorts. His hairy legs looked cute with his coat and shirttail. “Where can I hang these?”
“Just drape them over the back of that chair.”
Which he did. And he sat back in the cow chair, as if nothing had changed, as if he didn’t have something jutting in his lap. He crossed his right leg over his left. He was still smiling, but it was an uncomfortable smile, directed at himself, at her, at his penis.
What the hell were they out to prove? That they could sit around in their underwear without pouncing? She folded one leg under the other, keeping her knees together. She wished they didn’t feel like an old married couple.
“Oh oh oh,” she suddenly said. “You might know this. A line from a movie has been going through my head all day. ‘I luf you like a pig lufs mud.’ Sound familiar? Is it Garbo? Dietrich?”
He thought a moment. Then he broke into a smile. “Uh-uh. It’s Ingrid Bergman. It’s—oh what’s the name?” He snapped his fingers.
“Gaslight? Casablanca?”
He shook his head. “No, period piece. A comedy. And she’s beautiful, like always, but funny too, which makes her even more beautiful. She’s a fortune hunter, and she has a great name. Clio Dulaine! And she’s in love with Gary Cooper.”
“Saratoga Trunk!” cried Jessie. “It was just on AMC. How could I forget? And there’s a dwarf, and a mulatto housekeeper. And you’re right. She is beautiful. But not half as beautiful as Gary Cooper.”
One met so few men, or women either, who really enjoyed old movies. Gay men thought they did, but most of them knew only a few obvious titles and the same tired scenes. The occasional straight man who loved old movies was usually ashamed of knowing so much. But not Frank.
“I luf you like a pig lufs mud,” Frank repeated. He was staring at her.
“What?” But she knew what.
“Too bad it’s a weeknight.”
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s just—I don’t know. There’s usually something too rushed and utilitarian about sex on a weeknight.”
“What makes you think I want to go to bed with you?”
He considered that, then nodded. “Good. If you’re not interested, we have nothing to worry about, do we?”
She propped an elbow on a knee and set her chin in her hand. They were both playing bluff with their lusts. “Hey,” she said. “It’s early yet. Want to be utilitarian?”
He smiled. “I don’t know. I keep changing my mind. From minute to minute.”
“Me too.” Her throat was tight, her words squeaked.
And they sat there, gazing at each other across the room, waiting for someone to make the next move.
Finally he stood up. He came toward her. He was still smiling.
She scooted over on the sofa.
He sat down beside her. He slipped an arm behind her back.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello yourself.”
She leaned into the heat of his body. She was surprised by how warm he was. He seemed as large and comfortable as a dray horse. She looked up at a chin peppered with evening whiskers. “Should I brush my teeth?” she whispered. “Broccoli with garlic sauce?”
“I love broccoli with garlic sauce.” And he kissed her.
His mouth tasted like apples and beer. She could feel his kiss take root in her crotch, twist and knot there, then climb like a vine into her breasts.
Oh yes, she thought. This is what I want. This is what I need. Sex. Good friendly sex. Sex with a good man, a nice guy who loves me more than I love him. Which was too bad. But better this way than the other. And there’s no telling what either of us will feel on the other side of the finish line.