Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes (17 page)

“
HE
'
S THE HANDYMAN
!
CALM
down!” Suddenly Ally was perfectly composed and in command, the arbiter of reason and common sense. She turned to Lizzie. “Give me the BB gun. Now. Please.”

Lizzie did so as Jake walked toward them in the backyard. “Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”

Ally turned. “Lizzie, down off the swing, please.”

Lizzie jumped off and onto the grass. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, honey.”

“Early! Surprise!”

“Surprise!” Ally said as Jake walked up. She tucked the toy gun into her pocket. “Jake,” she said, shaking her head in exasperation. “This is my mom. Mom, Jake.”

“Hello,” said Claire.

“Lizzie, this is Jake.”

“Hi,” said Lizzie.

“Hi,” said Jake and smiled at Lizzie.

“Lizzie, you have a surprise in your room and you can thank Jake,” Ally said.

“Thank you. What surprise?” Lizzie said.

“He can't tell you,” Ally said. “It's secret. And there's a second surprise too. For your report.”

“A secret surprise and a second surprise!” She ran toward the back porch.

Ally looked at Claire and said quietly, “Jake put the bunk bed together.”

“How nice—to have a man around the house.”

“Yes, it was,” Ally said and turned to Jake. “Let's get you paid.”

Jake nodded. “I'll wait out front.”

“I'll grab a check,” Ally pretended.

Jake looked at Claire. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she said and watched him walk off. “Handsome,” she whispered.

“You think?” Ally said and turned toward the house. “The BBs go back.”

“Why? Why?” Claire followed. “You're the feminist.”

“What are you saying?”

“So? What's wrong with boy toys?”

—

Minutes later, out front, Ally held out a yellow bank check.

“Your mom's at the window,” Jake said as she approached. He stood by his car.

“Of course she is,” Ally said, handing him the check and extending her hand, businesslike. “This is horrible. Please forgive me.”

He took the check and shook her hand. He held it a moment, then let go and folded the check in halves, then quarters. “Faking this, right?”

“Of course,” she said.

Then he said, “I want to see you.”

Ally said nothing.

“I want to date you from Boston.”

“No.” She looked at her feet. She could feel herself starting to tremble again.

“Or I can move. Down here.”

“What would you do?”

“I don't know. Figure it out.”

“For work,” Ally said.

“Find odd jobs.”

She glanced at the house, at her shoes. She took a deep breath and studied Jake. “You're young. Go explore.”

“Explore what?”

“Everything. Go and travel while you can.” Ally was concerned. He'd lived between only two states. He'd never been anywhere, seen anything, or met anyone outside New England.

“I don't want to—”

“Not Timbuktu. Go see New York. See the West Coast. Get out of Boston. Get out of Providence.”

“Why? I want to—see if this works. Give it a shot.”

“No.” She wouldn't let him do it. Stay to date her. Despite all the life he had lived already, Jake was still twenty-one.

Twenty-one.

The same age as Ally when she made a choice that changed the course of her life forever.

“Please,” she said. “It's hard to see now. But this is the time—to
become
who you are.”

“I'm not asking for your advice.”

“You have potential.”

“I can't play ball.”

“So it's not baseball. It's something else. But you're not a handyman, Jake. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If it were you. You're smart and sweet, and so—hot. That's—a
rare
combination, you know?”

“Let me—hold on—get this straight.” Jake studied her, biting his lip. “You don't want to take this further? Ever? At all? Just like that?”

“I can't. I'm in enough trouble already.”

“Why?”

“My
job,
” Ally said.

“I don't—?”

“I am hanging on by a
string
. Meer's calls? She found out—I write these articles—on the side.
Cosmo. Elle. Redbook. Vogue.
A dollar a word. Using a name—a fake name—my mother's name.”

“So?”

“Serious scholars don't write for
Vogue
! According to Meer!”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“She is looking for
any
reason—any excuse— I could get fired for dating you. I could get fired for this—this weekend—and you don't have work, so what would we do?”

“So it's the money?”

“I have a
child.
” She was near tears. “Please, don't make this . . . harder than it is!”

“I'm glad it's hard!” Jake stared at her, mouth closed, lips pressed together. He didn't understand. Not fully.

Ally looked down. “I can't do it. I can't date you. That's final.”

Jake looked away. Ally looked up. She watched him as he glanced at the check, then at his car. The bedding was still bundled in the front. He looked at Ally. “You're a coward.” He swiftly circled the front of the Chevy.

“Yes, I am!” Ally said. “And I have every reason to be!” He opened the door and climbed in. She looked away as he started the engine. Then she circled too, in front of him, and crossed the street, her chest tight with panic, heart beating fast, choking back tears.

She thought she might faint as she walked up the steps. She wasn't cruel. She'd never been cruel to a person before.

What had she done?

She turned around.

She watched as Jake pulled onto the road. He rolled down the window and fast-pitched the condom, full, like a ball, across the street and into a hedge. Then he released the yellow confetti—the torn-up check.

A breeze caught and held the pieces in midair, carried them aloft till they all floated down to rest on the road in a scattered puddle.

Ally stood there and watched the Chevy, Jake inside it, grow smaller and smaller.

Then he turned a corner and disappeared.

—

At the table in the kitchen, Claire dunked a tea bag. “He started
early
to do all that.”

Ally paused before she spoke. “He did the ACs—yesterday. He came back this morning to finish the bed.” She stood in the pantry, flour in one hand, sugar in the other. She was starting to make a birthday cake.

“What was he doing in the basement?”

“A wall. Mold. He washed it down. Shoot. I'm out of vanilla.”

Lizzie appeared. “I found a sock and a shirt.” She held up one of Jake's socks and his Sox shirt.

“Honey, I have to run to the store. Want to come?” Ally put the sugar on the counter.

“Where did you find them?” Claire asked Lizzie.

“Under the bed. Mommy's bed.”

“Why were you under my bed?” Ally asked.

“The second surprise. That's where you hide my Christmas presents.”

Ally smiled. “Lizzie Hughes: the best girl detective in the world!”

“I didn't—”

“Dining room.”

“Yay!” Lizzie ran out.

“Paper bag!” Ally called. She smiled at Claire. “Little soldiers. For her report. Diorama due Tuesday.”

“You look exhausted.”

“I am. I am. Thank goodness this year is
over.
” She picked up her purse.

“How is your TA?”

“I don't know. I'm headed to the store. Need anything?”

—

By that afternoon, the cake had cooled. Lizzie sat in the screened-in porch, gluing together a shoebox tavern.

In the yard Ally stood in the cool grass, gazing up at her dogwood tree.

Claire sidled up. “Beautiful weekend.”

“It was.”

“Too bad you were all holed up.”

Ally studied the dogwood flowers, open and white. She reached up and touched one. The four petals were soft and wrinkled.

“Meg Moran called last night. Remember her?”

“Do I?” said Ally, rubbing a petal between her fingertips.

“They had a place on Remsen Street. Sold five years ago. Moved to New London.”

“Where?”

“New London. A few miles from Mystic. Mystic Seaport? Mystic, Connecticut?”

Ally's stomach did a flip-flop. Her gaze moved from the beautiful tree to the white billowed clouds in the bright-blue sky. “What did she want?”

“She swore she saw you in Mystic this weekend. Holding hands with a handsome young man.”

Ally smiled. “I wish.”

“She said she was happy to see you so happy. So in love.”

“In love?” Ally scoffed. “Too bad it wasn't me.”

Claire nodded and eyed her daughter. “I told her that. I said you were home, grading papers. She said she was absolutely sure it was you.”

Ally gazed again at the tree. “I guess she needs new glasses then.” She reached up and snapped off a dogwood bloom. “Isn't it early for this to be—or is it late?”

Claire looked up at the tree. “Late. Couple weeks late. Which is odd, with the winter we had.”

“So if it's cold, the trees bloom early? I don't get it.”

Claire ignored her. “You can't afford another mistake.” Her voice dropped in pitch.

Ally waited.

“All my money is in the brownstone. I cannot support you if something else happens. Are you on the pill?”

“That is none—”

“You cannot afford to be casual!”

“She didn't see me!”

“I wasn't born yesterday!” Claire yelled. She caught herself and looked toward the porch. Then she whispered. “Maybe you fool a ten-year-old girl, but not me—”

Ally turned and strode away, back to the house. She chucked the dogwood bud to the ground.

Claire followed. “Your chances of finding a man now are zero to none. No decent man wants used goods. No man wants another man's child—or two, God forbid!”

“Enough,” Ally said. She'd heard it before. Many times.

“Your focus is tenure. Lizzie and tenure and—”

“I know how you feel.” She skipped steps up to the porch. At the door, she turned. “I'm not getting it. Meer is after me. What are we even talking about?”

“I am discussing what happened this weekend!”

“And I am
not
!” She opened the door, slipped inside, and let it bang shut.

Inside the porch, Lizzie looked up from her diorama.

“Elizabeth. Please. Go upstairs.”

“Why?”

“So I can talk to Grandma. Alone. Come back down in five or ten minutes.”

Lizzie stood up and left the room, taking her Nathan Hale with her.

Ally doubled back, opened the door, and stood there again, staring at her mother. Claire stood her ground in the same spot.

“You're right,” she admitted. “I had a weekend of meaningless sex.”

Claire's eyes grew wide.

“I didn't plan it. I planned to grade papers. But it happened and it was great and amazing. Do you want the details?”

Claire fumed. “Tell me that boy does not go to Brown.”

“No. But he did.” Ally's eyes brimmed with tears. “A week ago, he was in my class, and that made the whole thing naughty and dangerous and stupid—and better than any sex I've had. Which, face it, Mother, has not been much.” She took a breath. Her tears spilled. “I have been focused. I have been good. I have been sexless. For years.
Years.
And he was fantastic. He was— It was fantastic fucking sex for two days straight, and now he's gone. He offered to
marry
me, and I kicked him out. I didn't want to, but I did. So it's done. So what do you want to do about it?
Ground
me? Give me a big time-out? Send me to my room? What? What?”

Claire was frozen with anger.

“I love you, Mother, but I'm
thirty-one.
At some point you have to—
back off.
”

The two women stared at each other and seethed. Ally then let the door go and went back inside.

She flew through the porch to the front hall. She climbed the stairs and walked down the hall toward Lizzie's room.

She peeked through the crack Lizzie left in the door. “Okay, I'm done,” she said calmly. “You can go down.”

Lizzie sat on her new top bunk and flipped through a book. “Are you in a fight?”

“Sort of.”

“With Grandma?”

“A little.”

Lizzie nodded. “I love my bed. Thank you so much. I was so surprised.”

“Good.”

“Tuesday's my birthday.”

“I know. I can't wait. I'm baking your cake.”

“Where is she now?”

“Still out back. Let's give her a sec. I'll see you downstairs and we'll frost the cake.”

“Can I help?”

“Of course.” Ally then moved away from the door, went down the hall, and entered her room. She reached across the bed, picked up the phone, and took it with her into the bathroom. Safe inside, she shut the door, locked it.

—

“I need a favor,” she said weakly, on the phone.

“Everything okay?” Anna asked. She had just moved to Denver.

“UTI. Call something in? So I don't die?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” Ally said softly.

“Ally?”

“Yes?”

“Sit in a bathing suit for too long?” Anna laughed. “Something I should know?”

Ally told Anna about the weekend, about Jake.

“Why did you send him
away
?” Anna asked when she had finished.

“He's
twenty-one,
” Ally said, anguished. “Broke, unemployed, in debt.
Twenty-one.
”