Modern Lovers (11 page)

THE DITMAS PARK LOCAL BEAT

Yoga Evolves on Stratford

I
t was more fun than he'd had in years, though “fun” wasn't precisely the right word. Salome called the dance parties “cosmic trances,” and they were fucking cosmic, absolutely. Andrew had never been a dancer—in high school he had occasionally pogoed into his friends in the pit at shows, and at Oberlin he had grinded his body against beautiful girls with short hair and nose rings when he was fall-down drunk, but he had never really liked to dance. He was far too self-conscious. Zoe was in the dance department, always flinging her body against the wooden floor and calling it choreography. That was how she got all the girls. Elizabeth was more like him, happier to stand against a wall and bob her head, preferably holding a red plastic cup in front of her face so that she could whisper things to whoever was standing next to her. Andrew hadn't realized he was so tired of whispering.

At first, when Salome had started playing music, they were all sitting down or giving each other little back massages. Andrew closed his eyes and sat on a pillow in the corner of the room. He wanted to let go of his body, to let go of his mind. He'd tried talk therapy, but it wasn't for him. You couldn't change anything by sitting in a room with a stranger and telling him your side of the story. Andrew liked interaction, and healing from the outside in. The music was
interesting, rhythmic and wobbly. He couldn't tell if he was listening to guitars or synths or nothing at all, just some computer-generated tracks made by a kid in his basement. Probably the latter. Did anyone even learn how to play an instrument anymore? No, he wasn't going to think about that, he wasn't going to be Clint Eastwood telling kids to get off his lawn. And so Andrew relaxed, and waited.

It was three a.m. when he finally walked out the door. He was soaked with sweat—his own and everyone else's. EVOLVEment had turned into a greenhouse, all of them their own individual hothouse flower. The air on Stratford Road felt cool and refreshing, just like the glasses of cucumber water that the EVOLVErs had been passing around and then pouring over one another's heads.

Elizabeth was going to be pissed, if not worried. Andrew didn't know which was worse. Worry could remove some of the sting of anger, if she was happy to know that he was all right. Of course, he wasn't her child—why would she assume that something had befallen him? Andrew thought about explaining why he liked EVOLVEment but couldn't come up with anything that didn't sound like he was about to start sleeping with a nineteen-year-old.

It wasn't that. Andrew had no interest in having sex with the beautiful young things. There were unbelievable-looking girls everywhere in the house, making juice and dancing and kicking up into handstands, giving you a peek of their stomachs and underwear all over the place, and it only made Andrew feel like a latter-day Humbert Humbert, or like a more Jewish version of Sting. Andrew didn't care. The only nineteen-year-old he wanted to have sex with was himself. He wanted to go back in time and watch himself take off his clothes, so terrified of the world that he couldn't stop snarling, even when he was about to make love to someone for the first time.

He and Elizabeth had known each other from the dorms. They'd had a few classes together—an intro creative-writing class, plus The Story of the Dinosaurs, the science class that all the humanities kids
took—and they were friends, a bit. If they saw each other outside the library, they would sit on a bench and smoke cigarettes. Elizabeth was so sweet, so suburban—Andrew had liked her from the start, even before they were in the band together and he saw what she could really do. She had none of the jaded bullshit that his friends from home had. She wasn't spoiled. She could knit. They went bowling, and Elizabeth got strike after strike—it turned out she'd been on her high school's bowling team. What kind of high school had a bowling team? Andrew thought it was possible that Elizabeth had grown up in the 1950s and been teleported to Oberlin through space and time. Lydia, on the other hand, had been as familiar as a sibling. She was from Scarsdale, which wasn't so far from the Upper East Side. She had rich parents and her own car and a credit card that she wasn't afraid to use. Just like all of his high-school friends, Lydia was mean as a snake, something she'd no doubt learned from her parents. She would have been the easy choice. His mother would have loved her.

Andrew hadn't been outside at three in the morning since Harry was a baby, and they would take walks around the block to try to coax him back to sleep, the three of them like a tribe of zombies, he and Elizabeth making shushing noises and bouncing in unison, no matter which one of them was wearing the baby in the Björn. Ditmas Park was always quiet, but this close to Coney Island Avenue there were more trucks and horns, even in the middle of the night. It was true what they said about New York and sleeping—Andrew had forgotten that. He turned right on Beverly and started walking back toward Argyle. A breeze made the sweat on his forehead feel cool. Summer was the only season that mattered—the only reason for winter to exist was to increase the gratitude that Andrew felt for the month of June at this exact moment in time.

He unlocked the door to his house quietly and slipped his shoes off next to the front door. Iggy Pop was asleep on the sofa, and Andrew scooped him up and carried him up the stairs. The cat arched
his back into Andrew's shoulder, still mostly asleep. The bedroom door was open a crack, and Andrew could see from the hallway that Elizabeth had left her bedside lamp on. He nudged the door open a few more inches with his toe, and gently set the cat down on the bed.

Elizabeth stirred. She'd never been a hardy sleeper, but in the years since Harry was born—even well after he stopped waking in the middle of the night—she'd been prone to waking when cars drove past, at distant sirens, at barking dogs. He knew this only because she told him in the morning—Andrew himself was always fast asleep. It was something they fought about, in a low-level way, that she was awake and he was asleep and he had missed whatever it was that had annoyed her. Andrew slid off his shirt and his shorts. His sweat had dried to a thin film of salt—he smelled a little bit, but Elizabeth had never minded that.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice low. She rolled over to face him.

“At the yoga place. They were having a party.” Andrew sat down on his side of the bed. Elizabeth's foot peeked out from under the sheet, and he put his hand on her arch.

“A party.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and Andrew tried to decide if it looked more like sleepiness or contempt. He clicked off the light.

“A party.” Andrew pulled back the sheet and slid underneath. He inched closer to his wife in the darkness. Elizabeth's body felt like the ocean, vast and cool. First he kissed her arm, and when she didn't shove him away, he kissed her shoulder, and then her cheek. By the time Andrew kissed his wife's mouth, she was moving her body back and forth like a snake about to strike, and he knew that whatever happened next, it would be good. This is what it was like when they were kids: playful, nibbling. Elizabeth had been an eager lover, like the student athlete she'd been in high school, cheeks flushed and full of energy. They rolled and stretched like two lion cubs, biting and
pawing at each other's body parts. After a few minutes, they settled into a familiar position—they knew what worked. His ears were still vibrating from the party, and the room sounded like a subway platform. “Am I being too loud?” he asked Elizabeth, now flat on her back, his hands wedged under her hips with his face between her legs.

“Harry's at a friend's house,” she said. “Get to work,” shoving his face back against her body.

I
t was almost two when their feet actually touched the sand. Harry dropped the umbrella and his two enormous bags with a satisfying thud. Ruby leaned down to grab one of the beach towels, but Harry put out his arm to block her. “Please,” he said. “Allow me.” He stretched out two towels, stuck the umbrella in the sand between them, and then gestured for Ruby to sit. The sand was grimy, with candy wrappers and cigarette butts poking up here and there, but the water looked clear, and people were swimming. Harry's mother had always told him that New York City beaches were toxic-waste zones and to be avoided at all costs, and he was glad he hadn't listened. What other things were out there, just waiting to be enjoyed? Elizabeth didn't like bacon, and so they never ate it, never. Harry was going to order a BLT with extra bacon—a BBLT—at the next possible moment.

“What else is in those bags?”

Harry dug around in one and pulled out a plastic pail and shovel.

“Okay,” Ruby said, giggling. “What else?”

Harry reached back down and pulled out a little insulated cooler. Inside were two tiny cans of champagne. It had taken Harry an hour and forty dollars to convince some young woman walking down
Cortelyou to buy them for him. “Cheers,” he said, popping one open and handing it to Ruby, who took such a small sip that Harry knew she was impressed.

The beach was filled with old Russian ladies holding hand weights as they walked up and down the boardwalk, avoiding the packs of guys with beards and dark sunglasses and girls wearing tiny shorts and cutoff T-shirts.

“It's like an American Apparel billboard,” Ruby said. “But with beer and sand.”

Harry couldn't tell if that was a compliment or not, but Ruby seemed to be enjoying herself, and so he didn't respond other than to nod and say, “Yeah.”

They took half naps, they splashed in the water. Neither of them had a bathing suit, but it didn't matter. Ruby peeled off her dress. Her stomach was a soft, creamy brown, just like the rest of her, of course, though every inch gave Harry a new thrill. She had a perfect little outie belly button right in the middle! He could see more than the outline of her breasts through her thin, lacy bra, and when she walked away from him, toward the water, wearing nothing but her bra and underwear, Harry tried not to have a heart attack. He took off his shirt and his jeans and went in in his boxers, praying the flap stayed closed. There was a burger place just on the other side of the boardwalk, and Ruby waited on their towels while Harry got them food. She licked a spot of ketchup off her hand. It was the most beautiful beach anyone had ever seen, ever, even with the planes going overhead to JFK and all the seagulls and the noise and the people. There were towels everywhere, and Dominican families, and hipsters with ironic mustaches, and old men wearing Speedos, and fat women in bikinis. Harry thanked God that his parents had never moved to the suburbs, or to France, or anywhere else in the world. Ruby got the giggles after the champagne, and she let him put sunscreen on her shoulders. Harry
took as long as possible, painting little designs and taking pictures with his phone before rubbing them in.

The burger place was getting rowdy. On their walk back to the train, Harry and Ruby stood outside for a few minutes and watched people dance and chug beers.

“I feel like I'm watching a movie,” Harry said. “About people who kill a hobo while they're drunk-driving.”

“Yeah, and this is part of the montage that we keep seeing in flashback,” Ruby said. “Totally.”

Harry let Ruby carry the smaller tote bag, which was less heavy now that there were no drinks and snacks in it, and he had lost a few of the beach toys, which he was fine with. They were more of a joke anyway, even though he really had liked watching Ruby build a sand castle. It was the kind of thing he wouldn't have done for fear of looking too babyish, but Ruby obviously never worried about that. They got on the train and sat in a two-seater facing the direction they were going, with Harry against the window and Ruby on the aisle. As soon as they sat down, she let her head drop against his shoulder and put her arm around his waist.

“I had a good time,” Ruby said. “Almost good enough to stop being mad at you for ditching our stupid SAT class this morning.”

“Me, too,” Harry said. He sat as upright as possible and tried not to move, just in case Ruby took his fidgeting as a sign that he didn't want her there. At the next stop, someone started to sit in the seat next to them, which would've crushed Ruby's knees and made her have to shift positions, so Harry gave the best death stare of his entire life, and the guy moved away.

“I feel like we must smell bad,” Ruby said. “No one wants to sit near us.”

“You do smell bad,” Harry said, softly, into her ear. “You smell like toasted garbage.” He paused, afraid he was taking the joke too far. Everything still seemed precarious, as if Ruby might just sit up
and look at him and see the truth, that he was still Harry, just Harry, no one she wanted to cuddle with on the subway.

But Ruby said, “Mmmm,” and snuggled closer. “My favorite kind.” She was asleep in a few minutes and slept all the way until they had to change trains to get the Q home. When they finally got off at the Cortelyou stop, Harry was nervous. Ruby seemed rested and happy after her siesta, and the bridge of her nose was a bit burned, despite Harry's artistic efforts with the sunscreen. She bounded up the stairs and started walking toward Argyle. Harry stopped.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was quiet—his mother's office was a few doors away, and he didn't want to cross in front of it, just in case she happened to be sitting at her desk.

“What?” Ruby said.

“This way,” Harry said, using his head to point behind them.

“Okaaaaay,” she said. “You do know that our houses are both the other direction, right? Did you have some kind of brain injury while I wasn't paying attention?”

“Just trust me,” he said, and started walking.

Convincing someone to buy him champagne was easy—part B of the plan had been much, much trickier. Elizabeth kept the keys to all her properties at the office, except on weekends when she was having a few open houses—then they lived in a zippered pouch that hung from a hook above her desk. The summer was always busy, and she was running from one place to another every day—right now there were a few houses a bit farther south, closer to Brooklyn College, and one on East Sixteenth Street, a really big house that backed up onto the train tracks. She was showing the two houses on Sunday, and had shown the subway one that afternoon. Harry knew it was a risk to take the key, but he had, and the hardware store made him a copy in five minutes. The house's owners had moved to Florida. It was just sitting there, with their enormous old-people furniture, all dark, heavy wood and formal dining chairs. One of the smaller bedrooms
had had a doll collection, which Elizabeth had shoved into a box and hidden in the basement. The subway running through the yard was enough of a handicap—they didn't need to give people nightmares, too.

The porch was dark, and Ruby hesitated before following Harry up the stairs.

“Whose house is this?” She was whispering.

“Ours,” Harry said. He knew there wasn't an alarm, even though there were stickers on the windows and a sign in the lawn saying that there was. According to his mother, that was true for 70 percent of the houses in their neighborhood. Ruby hurried up behind him.

“Are you serious?” she asked, but Harry had already opened the door. He pulled her in and shut the door behind them. “Whose house is this?” she asked again. “You're fucking crazy!” It was crazy, a little, and he knew that they could get into massive amounts of trouble, and his mom, too.

“I told you. It's ours.” Harry wasn't sure if he could pull off mysterious, but he was having fun trying. Ruby was an inch taller than he was, maybe more. She sucked in her lower lip and looked around. “Come here,” Harry said.

“Where?” Ruby asked. She peeked around the corner, into a dark kitchen.

“Here,” Harry said. He took a step forward, closing the gap between them, and kissed her. Ruby was good at it, of course. They stopped and started and stopped and started and stared at each other. Her mouth opened and closed, and she flicked her tongue against his, and Harry let out a moan that sounded like Chewbacca, and he didn't care. A SWAT team with machine guns could have broken down the door and taken him to a federal prison and he wouldn't have cared—it was a hundred percent worth it. Ruby pulled away, took his hand, and started walking farther into the dark house.

“Let's go explore,” she said. All day long, Harry had been trying to convince his penis to stay down, to be quiet, but now it was a lost cause. His erection pressed against his jeans, and when Ruby's wrist accidentally brushed past it, she said, “Oh, hello there,” which made it even bigger. If this was what came from a life of crime, Harry was ready to sign up.