The Shape of the Earth, page 6
I’m too pissed to answer.
He circumvents a puddle and walks over to me. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“I need more than a hand. Someone stole my spare. God damn it!” Dave said this would happen if I put off buying a new spare.
“I’ll take you to get a tire.”
“I don’t want to buy a motherfucking tire. I’m too pissed at the moment, in case you haven’t noticed. I hate dealing with garages. I don’t know a blessed thing about cars.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’ll think about tires tomorrow.”
“How about a ride home?”
“Thanks. I would fucking love a ride home.”
Ian’s car is parked several empty spaces from mine. I walk through puddles, while he walks around them, and I’m first to reach his car, my deck shoes and sockless feet soaked.
“The door isn’t locked,” he says as he gets in.
I take off my fedora to duck under the frame, while he moves a pile of books from the threadbare seat on the passenger side. The wipers lie across the windshield at odd angles; when he starts the car, the wiper on my side moves faster than the one on his.
“I have no idea when my spare was stolen,” I tell Ian. “I waxed my car Thanksgiving weekend and when I lifted the panel, the tire wasn’t there.”
Rain falls harder as we drive up busy Harbor Boulevard and turn left onto a block of Valencia Drive lined with jacaranda trees and bungalows, among Fullerton’s oldest neighborhoods.
I wish Ian hadn’t seen me throw my coffee cup at my car.
Beyond an elementary school set amid boxy stucco houses like Dave’s and mine, we turn left on Brookhurst. We stop in the middle of the second block in front of our house. Our lawn needs mowing. The grass has grown a couple of inches with all the rain. I try to think of some parting quip to make before I get out, so Ian won’t think I’m such a hothead.
“Thanks for the ride,” I mumble.
“Sure. Can I come in for a few minutes?”
I watch the windshield wipers flop back and forth. Dave might be home. I’m not in the mood to face Dave and Ian together.
“Or can we go somewhere for a cup of coffee, Lenny? I don’t feel like being alone, if you have a little time to kill.”
I try to remember whether Dave said he was going to campus this afternoon. Screw it, I decide. “You can come in.”
Through a downpour, we dash up the walk to the small cement porch. Rain sizzles, loud and fragrant. Runoff streams from the roof overhang and splashes the muddy ground as I unlock the door and we duck inside. “Anyone home?”
Dave doesn’t answer.
I toss my jacket and hat on the washing machine. The house smells of last night’s salmon. We couldn’t grill outdoors because of rain. A few dozen ants crawl on the sink counter, and I wipe them up with a paper napkin. I grab towels from the bathroom and my old Haverford College sweatshirt from the bedroom, and we dry our heads and hands.
“Give me a minute while I change. That sweatshirt’s clean, if you want to wear it.”
I slosh back to the bedroom in my waterlogged shoes, strip, and put on beige shorts and a gold cashmere sweater I wear as a shirt. It has holes in the armpits. I join Ian in the living room. He wears my sweatshirt and has taken off his wet sneakers and socks. Glimpsing his light tan bare feet on the wood floor, I feel my heart bump. I kneel to turn on the gas in our small fireplace, while Ian browses a bookcase. He picks up Dave’s tome, The Interaction of Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes.
“I’ll show you a picture in there.”
Ian hands me the book as I rise to my feet.
I find a photo of two rattlers squaring off, their back halves coiled in dust, front halves raised vertically a yard off the ground. “Two males about to fight. They wrap around each other and flop all over hell.”
“I never thought about how snakes fight.” He stares at the picture after I pass back the book. Eventually he returns it to the shelf, keeping his finger on the spine, by Dave’s name. He cocks his head at me.
“It’s Dave’s,” I confirm.
I fill the coffeemaker with water. “I’m sorry about your mom, Ian. I know how depressed I got when my dad died.”
“It feels strange. There’s no one to take care of but myself.”
“Do you have any aunts or uncles?”
“The closest thing to family we ever had was a Mrs. O my mom worked for in a laundry in Dublin. She stayed with us on a trip over here when I was ten.”
The kitchen smells less of salmon and more of coffee. Before the pot is full, I pick it up and pour a mug for Ian, dripping coffee singeing the machine’s metal warming plate.
He carries his coffee into the living room, and I follow. He glances around the room, looking at the bare walls Dave and I keep meaning to hang something on, at our dull couch and chair, at the bookcase, the fireplace.
“Curious about Dave’s habitat?” I say.
Ian uses his free hand to pick up an open book that lay facedown on the couch. He stares at the title, Woman in the Dark. “I’ve read this. A lady I did yard work for in high school had it.” He keeps my place with a finger.
“Maybe that was her copy. I got it at the Goodwill.”
“She moved years ago.”
Still standing, we stare at each other. “You didn’t answer my question. Curious about where Dave lives?”
Ian steps closer and kisses me. Only our lips touch, and he steps back.
“Friends, Lenny?”
“It’s easier for you.”
He flips to the front of the book. “Do you have other Dashiell Hammett mysteries?”
“I have most of them.”
Ian follows me into the bedroom. “I’ve never seen a bed that high,” he says, while I peruse a bookcase.
“We got it from Dave’s grandparents.” I find six Dashiell Hammett mysteries, carry them in a stack to the living room, and drop them on the couch.
We drink coffee and talk about old mysteries, my mind never wandering far from our kiss. Daylight fades, and the fire appears brighter. I turn down the flame because the room is warm. Switching on the lamp by the couch, I realize Dave could get home any minute.
I carry our empty mugs to the kitchen. Ian follows and talks about Cain’s Double Indemnity—the difference between the book and the forties movie. He glances at the half-full coffee pot as I put our mugs in the dishwasher. “You’re welcome to borrow those Dashiell Hammett mysteries if you want.”
“I guess I should be going, huh?”
He removes my sweatshirt, and I watch his small, taut nipples as they disappear beneath the green sweater and T-shirt he takes from the back doorknob and pulls on as one garment.
“Are you seeing Melinda this evening?”
“She’s in Indio, for her father’s birthday. We’re just friends, in case you’ve wondered. What are you guys doing tonight?”
“Nothing special.”
“Do you want company? You asked me to dinner a while ago.”
I shove my hands into my pockets and glance at the dark windowpane streaked with rain. Ian picks up his shoes and socks and leads the way into the living room. He opens the front door, letting in a draft of earthy air and the sound of rainwater singing through a drainpipe that runs down the front of the house.
“You can stay, Ian.” Reaching past him, I shove the door closed. “Make yourself at home while I start dinner. Dave’ll be here soon.”
Avoiding Ian’s eyes, I head into the kitchen. As I wait for water to boil, I realize how nervous I am. The pot hisses and trembles, and I turn down the flame because it’s too soon to put in the pasta. Seeing Ian isn’t in the living room, I go find him by a guest room bookcase, an open Bible in his hands. “You’re a Pentecostalist?”
“We just went to that church because it was down the street. I quit going during high school.” His eyes return to the Bible. “It’s interesting to see how different the translations are.”
“I bought that Bible for a lit class in college.”
We return to the living room. He asks if he can turn up the fire, and I nod. When he kneels on all fours at the hearth, I watch the soles of his bare feet and a sliver of his lightly tanned back as his sweater and T-shirt ride up.
On web radio, over my phone lying on the kitchen counter, a comedian talks about his cat’s sex life while I work at peeling and slicing tomatoes and cucumbers. Ian sits on the couch reading, the gas fire blazing across the room from him. I lay down my knife and slip through the living room and hall and into the bathroom. Coming back, I see Ian’s left foot propped over his knee and watch him wag its smooth sole as I cross the room.
I’m fumbling salad greens on plates when the back door opens and I jump, knocking half of one salad on the counter.
“It’s raining like hell!” Dave says, dropping his gym bag and briefcase on the floor. Water drips off his black windbreaker, his wet face partially covered by the hood. The knees of his jeans are soaked, and his boots make a squishing sound as he shifts his weight from foot to foot. “These boots are shot. I might as well be walking around outside in my socks.” He pushes the hood off his head, pecks me on the lips, and then he eyes the three salad plates on the counter. “Someone’s coming to dinner?”
“I had a flat tire, and Ian gave me a ride home.”
With a start, Dave glances into the living room. “Ian,” he calls. “How are you holding up?”
“All right. I knew my mom could die anytime.”
Ian gets up from the couch and steps into the kitchen doorway. He locks his hands behind his neck and stretches, looking from Dave to me.
The guy on the radio jokes about his penis as though it’s a creature apart from him.
“I’ll open wine,” Dave says.
While the pasta boils, we sip merlot and avoid more than a glance at each other as the comedian tries to milk his tenth high school reunion for laughs.
We eat in front of the fireplace, sitting with legs folded, Ian between Dave and me, faces aglow from the blaze, the only light in the room. We talk about the Academy Awards coming up soon, but none of us knows exactly when. I barely follow the conversation, only fully conscious of Ian caressing the ball of my foot with his toes.
I set my empty plate at my side, take Ian’s plate, and stack it on mine. Glancing past him, I meet Dave’s eyes in the firelight as I wrap my arm around Ian’s waist. Ian turns to me, and I kiss him. He pulls up my T-shirt, and I raise my arms and shrug it off. I help him tug off his own sweater and shirt. Dave rises to his knees and scoots behind us and caresses our bare backs while we kiss.
On our high double bed, I slide my fingers between the toes of Ian’s raised feet while Dave unrolls a condom along me and slathers it with KY. I want to tell Dave I love him. In my mind, I do tell him.
I want to go slow with Ian, make it last, but I’ve wanted him for too long.
Dave goes slow. I’ve never watched my cowboy’s backside while he’s fucking. I hang on to his balls like I’ve slipped off a ledge and grabbed them to keep from falling.
After Dave comes, Ian needs barely more than my breath to erupt in my mouth.
We lie against each other, Ian in the middle of the double bed, dim light shining into the room from the hall. Dave and I take turns kissing him, while rain patters the roof in bursts like handfuls of thrown pebbles. I slide down on Ian until he pulls me up and raises his legs again. This time I go slow while he arches his back and moans Jesus over and over.
Exhausted and content, I fall asleep.
When I wake, Dave holds my hand. “We’re moving to the sofa bed, so we’ll have more room.” I let Dave lead me to our queen-sized sofa bed, opened out in the guest room, with Ian curled on his side. I spoon against him, kissing his shoulders and neck. He reaches back, takes hold of me, while Dave lies in front of him, kissing him. I feel like I’m in a dream.
* * *
I wake at dawn, and Ian is blowing Dave while Dave calls him lover. I pretend I’m still asleep. After they both come, they fall back asleep without knowing I was ever awake. I get up, shower, sit on the couch, and read the paper on my phone. They get up and shower together.
Dave—naked and goose bumped—makes pancakes. Ian and I, in sweaters and jeans, sit on the washer and dryer. We’re sleepy. I hope Ian’s asshole isn’t sore. Dave talks about teaching, but his mind is on exhibiting himself. He slips a thumb under his puffy scrotum as though scratching, but I know he’s showing off his balls. He flicks the protuberant nub of a taut nipple with his thumb.
Sitting on the living room floor in front of the blazing fireplace, we eat.
Ian needs to go home and change clothes before he opens the bookstore. I stand back and watch Dave’s muscular buttocks clench as he kisses Ian at our front door. They exchange a few murmured words I can’t make out.
After Ian’s gone, Dave and his half-mast cock stumble back to our high double bed. I peel off my sweater and jeans and crawl in beside him under the comforter. Watching him fall asleep, I feel the warmth of his body, smell the coffee and maple syrup on his breath.
I want to wake him and ask how he felt after he had sex with Ian for the first time. Whether he felt he’d lost something. I wonder if I’m feeling what young girls feel after they lose their virginity. I want back my three, almost four, years of monogamy, so they can become ten years and twenty years.
I slip off the bed, shut myself in the bathroom, and sit on the closed toilet wondering if I’m going to cry. I worked so hard learning not to cry as a teenager. I cried so much two years ago when Michael, my lover during high school and closest friend since, died in a car wreck. His death still doesn’t seem real to me.
When no tears come, I get up from the toilet and slip back into bed to watch Dave sleep.
4. Baltimore
I stand on the customer’s side of the counter and over my shoulder watch our only patron of the past half hour carry his purchase out the door and into the sunny parking lot. I turn to Rosie on the stool behind the cash register. “Did I ever tell you I was going to be an architect?”
“Querido, architects are so sexy.”
I lean across the counter to talk confidentially, as though we aren’t alone. “The man you just waited on reminds me of an architect I worked for my junior year of college. He and I wound up having sex. After we’d done it a few times, he said he was in love with me, and I freaked and quit my job. Besides a wife, he had a baby.”
What I really want to tell Rosie is that I slept with Ian.
“So, querido, you gave up a career in architecture because you fucked some guy?”
“I was just a boy Friday at the firm. But I took an architecture class after I quit.”
“I think you’re a natural for architecture. I can picture your interview spread in Architectural Digest—a photo of you looking artsy-serious, the top buttons of your golf shirt undone to show some luscious blond chest hair.”
“You’re such a loose woman, Rosie. You’re almost as bad as I am.”
I wink at her and walk around the counter and into my office.
Rosie’s still sitting on the stool by the register when Ian arrives for his evening shift. I watch them exchange a few words and then watch Ian go into the popular fiction aisle. I step out of my office, scoot around the counter, and stroll into the aisle where Ian tidies up the shelves and puts books back in order by author. Blood flows to my crotch. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all day,” I say to his profile.
He works on a lower shelf. “I can’t believe how fast books get out of order.”
“Saturday night was great.”
“Lenny, can we not talk about it?”
“No one can hear us.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to be some couple’s plaything.”
“You’re not a plaything, any more than I’m a plaything or Dave is.”
“Bullshit. You guys have a relationship.”
“Ian, what do you want? We all had a great time.”
“At least let me catch my breath, would you, Lenny?”
“Sure, whatever. I didn’t mean to hassle you.”
Feeling rebuked, I watch his tanned, quick-moving fingers. I inhale his clean shampoo scent and mosey back to my office.
We nod to each other, nothing more, during our next couple of daily one-hour overlaps.
Thursday, ready to leave, I stop just beyond my door. Ian sits on the stool by the register. “Jane mentioned you got into the Johns Hopkins PhD program with full funding?”
He nods.
“Congratulations, Ian.” I try to overlook the fact that he told Jane before he told me.
“Thanks.”
I step closer to him. “I had no idea you applied to schools outside the LA area.”
“I applied to Hopkins on a whim. I never thought I’d go, because of my mom.”
“For what it’s worth, Dave and I liked living in the East. We’d probably still be in DC if he’d gotten a teaching job there.”
“I’ve lived here all my life. Everyone I know is here. What would I do in Baltimore?”
He stares out the plate glass window to the parking lot. The bright March evening is cold and gusty. People wear jackets as they climb in and out of cars. Women cup hands around hairdos.
I move close enough to talk in Ian’s ear. “Personally, I hope you don’t go to Hopkins. I enjoyed bed last weekend way too much.” I don’t want him to feel hassled, so I turn and head for the door and out to my car.
* * *
At home, as I refill our wineglasses over supper, I mention to Dave that Ian got into Hopkins. “Should we invite him for dinner Saturday, have a little celebration?” I say.
“I think he has plans with Melinda. Anyhow, he heard from Hopkins a while ago.”
I wait for Dave to suggest another night to invite Ian over, but he doesn’t. The fact that Ian knew about Hopkins even before yesterday and didn’t mention it to me leaves me feeling less important to him than I’d like to be.
