Younger (17 page)

N
o matter how much I wanted to stay home and be with Diana—and after her long absence, that's all I wanted to do—I couldn't call in sick. Teri was finally coming back to work. But I also couldn't let Diana see me duded up in my usual young-assistant working gear. The night before, when I'd been wearing old sweat clothes and covered in dust, when her eyes had been bleary from her long trip, I'd just looked like the same old mom to her. We'd curled up together on the couch just as we had when she was tiny, her head on my shoulder while she talked softly and I smoothed her hair and scratched her back. Although it tore me apart to leave the house without at least a glimpse of my sleeping daughter, I got dressed on tiptoes and saved my elaborate makeup application for the bus, where the only redemption for having to leave Diana was using the long trip to work on my novel.

By the time I made it to the office, I was exhausted—from the late night, the excitement of Diana's arrival, my tense leave-taking. And then there was the buzzer sounding from my phone the moment I stepped off the elevator.

“Alice,” came Teri's voice as I breathlessly lifted the receiver. “Come into my office immediately.”

Her door was shut, and when I let myself in, she was sitting grim-faced at her desk, several sheets of paper arrayed before her.

“Someone's been using this office,” she said, the second I stepped through the door.

I'd worked sprawled out on the floor, careful to replace the stapler and paper clip holders in the exact position I found them, not even using her phone for fear of leaving a telltale fingerprint behind.

But now, I had no choice but to 'fess up. As the guardian of the office, my only other option—claiming ignorance—would have been worse than the truth.

“I did some work in here, when I needed quiet,” I told her. “But I really didn't think I wrecked anything—”

“That's not the point,” Teri cut in. “The point is that it doesn't belong to you.”

“Right,” I said, feeling my cheeks begin to burn. “Of course.”

“Or did you forget that?” Teri said. The flu had left her face looking even sharper and more pinched than it had before. “Maybe you started to think that as long as you were stealing my ideas, you could grab my office and even my job.”

For the first time in my life, I understood what people meant when they said they couldn't believe their ears. I'd been bracing myself for Teri's return, anticipating that she would confront me about claiming what I saw as my rightful credit for the ideas for the classics project. But for her to say that I'd taken the ideas from her…

“You know that I didn't steal any ideas from you,” I said, keeping my voice even.

“I know nothing of the kind,” Teri said. “Not only did you take my ideas, but you perverted them in a way I don't even recognize, much less condone.”

All I could do was shake my head, words choking in my throat. “I don't know what you're talking about,” I finally managed to say.

“This is a travesty,” said Teri, thumping the top page of what I recognized as my most recent memo. “Abominable. It's beyond me how you could take it upon yourself to suggest that we use…trash!…to market the greatest books ever written by women.”

“What?” I gasped. “I assure you, Teri, no. I thought that you were as excited about this concept as I was.”

“My idea was to improve sales of the classics line,” Teri said, “not to get Jane Austen onto the shelves next to the feminine hygiene products. That's what's so offensive about this, Alice. It's…morally reprehensible to tart up Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë like some stupid girls' book.”

“But don't you think that whatever makes people read Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë is good?” I asked, feeling more conscious than ever of the blond dye in my hair, of the pink color on my lips. “Isn't anything that makes the novels look younger and more exciting for the better? They're still the same great books.”

Teri shook her head and set her mouth in a hard line. “I'd fire you right now, except somehow you've fooled Mrs. Whitney into believing this is a good idea. I don't know what kind of a stunt you're trying to pull, but I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked weakly, but Teri was done talking. She simply pointed to the door with a finger bonier than the Grim Reaper's, and when the silence became unbearable, I slunk away.

 

Later that morning, I tried to talk with Lindsay about what had happened, but the door to her office was closed, and her assistant claimed she was in a meeting. It seemed that as far as I was concerned, Lindsay intended to remain in a meeting for the rest of her life.

At about three, Diana called me, wondering when I was coming home. I explained to her that I'd try to leave at five and should be home by six or six-thirty.

That was the one bright spot so far in my day: telling my daughter when I'd be home, and knowing she was there waiting for me.

Teri stayed closeted in her office the entire day, not emerging even to yell at me, and so a few minutes before five I began gathering my things. I could hardly wait for the clock to strike the hour so I could dash out of there; if I timed it just right, I'd meet Mrs. Whitney on her way to her train home—she always took the 5:14—and then even if I encountered Teri, she wouldn't be able to give me a hard time.

I was one breath away from making my break when my phone rang. When I heard Josh's voice on the other end of the line, all the air went out of me. All weekend I'd been looking forward to tonight, when Josh and I were finally supposed to get together again. But then, in the thrill of Diana's homecoming, our plan had completely flown out of my mind.

“I was just wondering where we were going to meet,” he said, determinedly perky.

“Oh,” I said. “Josh. I'm sorry. I can't do it tonight.”

There was a long silence, and then he said, “You promised.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm so sorry. Something completely unexpected came up.”

That was when he exploded. “What's going on, Alice? I haven't seen you for a week now, I don't have that much time left, and you've completely vanished.”

“I know, I know, I just feel so stuck.”

“Stuck,” he said. “Is there something you're not telling me?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate. I hated to lie to him. It felt like an insult to all the closeness we'd felt, all the revelations we'd shared. I owed it to him—to Diana, to
myself
—to tell him the truth.

And I would. Just not right this minute.

“I promise,” I said. “In the next few days, we'll get together. But tonight I have to go home.”

“Home?”

“To Maggie's,” I said, smarting at telling a big fat lie.

And then, even as I was telling him good-bye, I started worrying about how I was going to pull off seeing him, and when, and what I was going to tell him when I did. The truth? Or something that, in the moment, seemed even sweeter?

 

When I finally turned the lock in the door at home, again writing for the duration of my bus ride home, I nearly didn't recognize my little house. It looked as if the place had been ransacked, with dirty clothes strewn all over the front hallway, laundry baskets of clean but unfolded clothes upended on the furniture, magazines and books scattered on every surface. Rap music was blasting from the kitchen, along with the smell of something burning.

“Hi, Mom,” Diana said.

She was perched on a kitchen stool, eating ice cream direct from a carton. She had apparently been shopping: chips spilled out of a bag onto a counter, next to an open tub of guacamole. The other grocery bags stood, still full, in front of the pantry.

“I went shopping for you,” Diana said proudly.

“Oh, thank you.”

I moved to hug my daughter, to drink her in in a way I hadn't been able to in the shock of her arrival last night. She looked both older and thinner to me, her skin brown, her arms muscled, her sandy hair streaked with blond.

“I've been starving ever since I landed,” Diana said, reaching back to her ice cream.

“Why don't you let me cook you dinner?” I said, brushing her hair back from her face. “I could make vegetable lasagna.”

Always her favorite.

“Thanks, Mom,” Diana said. “That would be great.”

She went back then to eating the ice cream, reading the magazine, and moving her head in time to the music, largely ignoring me. At first I was hurt that, after all these months of not seeing me, Diana hadn't said a word about how much weight I'd lost, or my new blond hair and groovy haircut.

But then I thought, Phew. I can relax now, and just be Mom again. In fact, the more I thought about it, the better I felt about the fact that Diana had been able to slide so instantly back into her old way of being here with me. It had been so cataclysmic when Gary announced his departure, and then Diana had taken off for Africa before our tears were even dry, making it feel as if we'd never again enjoy a normal evening like this.

I hummed as I set about constructing the lasagna, then moved through the house, stacking papers, folding laundry, sorting the contents of Diana's spilled suitcases, putting everything back in order. I found myself thinking about my novel, getting an idea for something my character might do, wondering whether I'd get a chance to write tonight, but then chiding myself: It's Diana's first night home. You want to be with her. And then tomorrow night, of course, I had to go to Josh's. Imagining what kind of excuse I was going to have to make to Diana about that sent me hurtling back toward panic, so I forced myself to concentrate on setting the table, lighting the candles, sliding the bubbling lasagna out of the oven and cutting it into nine tidy squares.

When Diana came to the table, I already had the spatula poised under her favorite piece.

“Center square?” I asked, smiling.

Diana sat there contemplating the lasagna, and suddenly pushed her chair away from the table.

“I can't eat that,” she said.

I was shaken. “Why not?”

“It's disgusting, Mother, all that dairy. You could feed my whole village on that.”

“I wish I could feed your village,” I said evenly, thinking that she must have spoiled her appetite with that ice cream. “I know this is an awful lot just for the two of us. We can freeze whatever we don't eat.”

“It's just…,” Diana said, looking around the house, her lip curling, “all this
excess
. I'm serious. I wish we could sell all this junk and donate the money to people who really need it.”

“Well,” I sighed, reluctant to bring up anything too precipitous when Diana was still in this weakened state, “we may end up having to sell this place. But I'm afraid the person who really needs the money is going to be me.”

“Ach,” Diana said, standing up. “That's ridiculous. I'm sorry, Mom. Maybe I'll have some cereal later.”

I ate the lasagna at the dining room table alone, blinking back tears as I gazed out at the daffodils on the lawns and the green fuzz on all the trees. I was so excited about Diana being here, had been delighted to devote my entire evening—would have loved to have spent the whole
day
—trying to make things special for her. And not only did she take it for granted, she seemed to assume I had no feelings of my own.

It was my own fault, I thought. I'd always been so selfless, so willing to serve, asking for nothing in return. I'd
raised
her to treat me like a doormat.

Don't be so hard on yourself, I thought, or on Diana. She'd be better as soon as she got some serious rest and readjusted to being back in America. Even coming home after my summer in London, I'd remembered feeling seriously disoriented. Until then, I'd have to be patient.

Late that night, as I sat in bed writing, I heard Diana rummaging around in the kitchen. I thought about getting up to see if she wanted anything, but then I told myself no, better let her take care of herself. It was time for things between us to start shifting, for her sake and for my own. In the morning I found the lasagna pan in the refrigerator, uncovered, empty except for one tiny dried-out square in the corner. Not wanting to wake her, I crept back upstairs and looked in on Diana in her old room, snoring in her little girl's white bed.

For years, when I looked at her as she slept, I could see the baby Diana in her more grown-up face. But now there was no trace of the infant or toddler or even the child she had once been. Instead, I realized with a shock as I watched her, what I saw there was myself—the young self I'd been trying to resemble, the young self I'd once been.

“W
here are you going?” Diana asked.

I leaped into the air and let out a little scream. I'd been tiptoeing through our darkening backyard, a garbage bag in my hand. Trying to think fast, I raised the bag and waved it around.

“Just putting out the trash.”

“You're all dressed up,” Diana pointed out.

She was standing in the open kitchen doorway, wearing her pajamas. When she'd gone to bed right after I got home from work—the jet lag had turned her schedule upside down—I waited a few hours and then figured I was safe to slip away to meet Josh. I'd already called and told him. In the morning when Diana noticed I was gone, she would assume I'd left for the office. I hadn't counted on her seeing me like this.

Narrowing her eyes, she leaned toward me. “Are you wearing
makeup
?”

“Oh,” I said, my hand fluttering to my face as if I'd forgotten it was there. “Am I wearing makeup?”

I hated lying to my daughter. But I was even more loath to tell Diana the truth: “Oh, honey, I'm just running off to see my young lover. The sex is fantastic, and he's just a few years older than you!”

“Yes, Mother, you're wearing makeup. And high heels. And tight pants. What are you trying to do?”

“I'm trying to look good,” I said, standing taller, feeling as if the person I was really trying to convince was myself. “Don't you think I look good? You haven't said anything about all the weight I've lost.”

“I didn't want to say anything,” said Diana, making a face as if she were trying to keep from throwing up. “I thought you might have, like, an eating disorder.”

That kind of nasty adolescent comment at least made it easier for me to leave.

“Listen, I'm going,” I said.

“When will you be back?”

I hesitated. Josh would naturally expect me to stay the night. I
wanted
to stay the night.

“I'll see you tomorrow after work,” I told her. “I'm just getting together with Maggie.”

“I want to see Maggie,” Diana said. “I'll get dressed and come with you.”

“No!” I cried.

And then, at Diana's shocked look, I hurried to explain, “Today was her final insemination attempt. She's going to be flat on her back. She doesn't even want me to be there.”

That part, at least, was true. Maggie's apartment had passed muster with the adoption people, and her doctor had green-lighted one more round with the sperm bank. This time, she'd vowed to spend the entire weekend with her hips in the air, staying as still and quiet as possible to maximize the sperm's chances of survival.

“But you are going to be there.”

“But I'm just going to help her,” I pointed out, deciding I needed to make the prospect even less appealing. “Emptying bedpans, cleaning toilets, that kind of thing.”

“Oh,” said Diana, looking as if she was about to cry. “Maybe another time.”

I was immediately overwhelmed with guilt. I'd never been able to say no to my daughter. And I hated lying to her.

“I don't have to go,” I said. “I could stay here with you.”

“No, no, go ahead,” Diana said, retreating back into the house. “I don't really want to hang out with a bunch of old people anyway.”

 

I hadn't let myself remember how handsome Josh was. How sexy. How sweet. I had blocked out how crazy he was about me. And vice versa. Completely blocked the vice versa.

I hadn't banked on Josh's huge grin when he opened his door, on the pressure of his lips at the corner of my mouth, the feel of his hand against my hip, instantly inspiring my nipples to stand at attention. I hadn't counted on how my entire body would melt under his gaze, how I would hear myself laughing and working to make him laugh, working to make him keep wanting me.

He was telling me about his preparations for Tokyo, something about his sublease, a mix-up over the apartment he thought he was getting in Japan, and all the while I was thinking: How am I ever going to tell him the truth?

There was simply no graceful moment, no easy transition. I couldn't imagine how to get from his:

You wouldn't believe the price of a tiny room in Tokyo.

To my:

God, that's worse than New York. And guess what, I'm a forty-four-year-old housewife!

Not just a housewife, I reminded myself. Or even just a mother, or assistant to the marketing director from hell. A writer now too. At least that was something important about my life I could share with him.

“I've been working on a novel,” I told him.

His face lit up, and he threw his arms around me. “That's so fantastic!” he said. “Tell me all about it.”

“Oh, there's not much to tell,” I said. “I started it a long time ago, and just recently I found it again, and I've been working on it.”

“Where was it?” he asked, still grinning.

I looked at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Where did you find your novel? Was it in, like, a suitcase, or had you stored it somewhere in Maggie's loft?”

“It was in a trunk,” I said, trying to avoid an out-and-out falsehood. “Stored.”

“Oh,” he said, looking as if he were going to ask me more but then shaking his head a little and, to my relief, deciding to pursue a different line of questioning.

“Can I read it?” he asked, with as much excitement as if I'd told him I'd resurrected a long-lost play of Shakespeare's. “I'd love to read it.”

“No,” I said quickly.

“Okay, okay,” Josh said, laughing. “I understand. Just tell me what it's about. What's the title? Tell me everything.”

I hadn't planned on telling him any of this. But as he pried one detail after another out of me, I found myself growing more and more animated. And with every detail I told him, he asked for more. What was the first sentence? How many chapters had I finished? What was the main character like? How had I written so much so quickly? Was he in it?

I felt myself blossom under Josh's attention. This was the thing that made him so different from Gary, so much more appealing than all the older men I knew. It wasn't his looks or his staying power in bed—though that was pretty remarkable, too. It was his willingness—no, his
desire
—to focus at least as much attention on me as on himself.

I wished I could pour my heart out to him about Diana. I didn't want to burden Maggie with the perils of parenthood, not now when she needed to feel only optimistic. But Josh, I felt, would understand anything I told him. I'm so hurt that my daughter treats me like my greatest pleasure in life should be doing her laundry, I wanted to tell him. But the worse thing is, I see now that I made her like that! I made her like that by letting washing her socks
be
my greatest pleasure for far too many years!

I'm trying to be patient, I wanted to tell Josh. I'm still the mother; I've got to give her the time to adjust to a new way of being with me. I've got to show her the way.

And meanwhile, all I want to do is be here with you, jumping your bones.

As if reading my thoughts, he leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips.

“I've missed you,” he said.

“I've missed you too.”

Truth. Truth with cherries on top.

“I have something I have to tell you,” I said, feeling as if I were peering down from the top of a very high dive.

“Can't you tell me in bed?” he asked. “If I don't tear your clothes off and lie naked on top of you right this very minute, I will die.”

One last time, I told myself. I'll sleep with him one last time. And then I'll definitely tell him.

 

I lay naked and spread-eagled across the bed, breathing deeply, sweat coating my body. At the other end of the loft, I could hear Josh moving around, filling two glasses with ice, running the water so it could get cold, ice tinkling as he walked back across the room toward me. I could feel him standing beside the bed, imagined him holding the water out to me, but I felt incapable of so much as opening my eyes, never mind reaching up for the water.

“That was the best sex of my entire life.”

He laughed lightly. “Me, too.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I've lived longer than you.”

He laughed again. “But that doesn't mean you've had more sex.”

I was about to contradict him, but then I thought, he's probably right. There had been only a handful of men before Gary, and I'd gotten pregnant so soon after our marriage, and then the threat of the miscarriage had ruled out intercourse for several months, so that we'd gone almost instantly from our brief honeymoon period to weekly sexual routine. Once a week for, say, twenty years. How many times was that? A thousand. That didn't seem like very many, though throughout my marriage I'd always been maneuvering to do it less. Yet with Josh, I felt that if we made love a thousand times this year, I'd still crave more.

Now, my entire body was still vibrating, my lips swollen and tingling. I felt the bed dip under his weight as he sat down, and I rolled toward him, lazily opening my eyes. He was so beautiful, his skin so smooth and tight, his muscles so perfectly formed, as if he'd been created just this morning. I couldn't resist reaching out and touching him, running my hand down his back to his waist and his hip. I wanted to commit this to memory, to make the memory powerful enough to last forever.

And then I surprised myself again by bursting into tears. I was curled on my side like a child, sobbing, yet every time I tried to gather myself together and apologize, I found myself crying all the harder. Josh finally set down the glasses of water he'd still been holding and lay down beside me, folding me in his arms. The smell of him enveloping me, the pressure of his fingers against my back, the weight of his leg draped over mine, only made me feel worse.

There was something I knew now that I didn't know when I was in my twenties: relationships like ours were near-impossible to find. I might, with a great deal of luck, a long time from now, meet another man who was more appropriate for the real me. But I knew I was never going to find someone else as wonderful in exactly the same ways as Josh.

And what about him? Would he have the same trouble connecting with someone new the same way he did with me?

My first automatic response was, No, it would be easier for him, he was so much younger, his life was less complicated, and besides, he was a man, with a larger universe of women at his fingertips. When he was forty-four, his age would even be an advantage in attracting twenty-five-year-olds.

But for me, there would be no twenty-five-year-olds after Josh. Even Josh, so warm against me, his breath made manifest with the rise and fall of his chest against mine, seemed ephemeral. Any minute now, he would disappear. I could try to hold on: keep putting off telling him the damning truth, even follow him to Tokyo. But no matter what I did, time would keep passing, making it only more certain that he would no longer be mine.