Only Son (17 page)

“Listen. Do you usually have dinner with your son, too?”

“Yes—”

“Well, you think some night this week you could find a sitter and have dinner with me? I'm free Saturday.”

Saturday? But
North by Northwest
was on Saturday night! Pizza with Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Mount Rushmore, and only three commercial interruptions. He'd been looking forward to it all week….

“Carl? You still there?”

“Um, yes. Saturday's fine,” he said. “It's just—we'll have to make it early in the evening, because I usually save Saturdays for my boy, and I'm pretty tuckered out by nighttime. I won't be much fun. Is six-thirtyish okay with you?”

“Sounds great.”

 

Carl knew nothing of Seattle's finer restaurants. So he asked Frank Tuttle for advice on where to wine and dine Connie.

“Ray's,” Frank told him. “Great food, terrific view. Get a window table. She'll be Play-Doh in your hands after that.”

Word got around the office about the date with Connie. He was very popular for the remainder of the week.

Carl called her Friday night and they talked for almost an hour—a good sign. He found out that she'd spent a while backpacking through Europe with her boyfriend, with whom she'd had a messy breakup a few months ago. Talking with her was effortless, because he didn't have to talk. In fact, she hardly asked him a thing about himself. Still, he enjoyed having a woman open up to him, and Carl could have spent another hour on the phone with her—if Sam hadn't gotten into his record collection and started mangling a James Taylor album. Then Carl had to hang up.

Sam sort of mangled his Saturday morning, too, waking him at six-fifteen with cries of boredom and hunger. After breakfast, Carl tried to grab some shut-eye on the living room sofa while Sam watched cartoons, but he never managed to drift off. He was too nervous about his date that night.

He took Sam to the zoo. It was hot out. They must have walked four miles within the maze of cages, wildlife settings, insect, reptile and monkey houses—and Sam wanted to be carried half the time. Carl's worst mistake was eating what must have been a bad
jumbo
hot dog at the snack shack.

He cut the zoo trip short as soon as the first wave of nausea hit him. He sped home in the car, thinking,
This must be what labor pains are like
. If he didn't get to a bathroom soon, he'd die.

As Carl sprinted up the apartment stairs, carrying Sam in his arms, he thought he might shit in his pants.

“I got to go potty,” Sam announced.

“So does Daddy,” he said, out of breath. “Real bad. Which way do you have to go? Tinkle or grunt?” Carl fumbled with the key to unlock the door.

“Tinkle.”

“Okay, okay, just be quick. C'mon…” He burst into the apartment, carried Sam to the toilet, then yanked down his shorts and training pants.

Sam just stood there, staring at the clear toilet water, his shorts around his knees. Carl hovered over him. He had tears in his eyes from the stomach cramps. “I know it's tough to rush these things, Sammy,” he gasped. “But please. Go on three. One…two…three…”

Carl counted to himself—in agony—for fifty seconds until Sam sprang a leak. It wasn't much of a leak either. Naturally, Sam insisted on flushing and watching the water fill up the bowl again.

Then Carl hurriedly pulled up Sam's pants and steered him out of the bathroom. “Go watch TV. I'll be out in a minute.” He shut the door.

Even after he'd finished in the bathroom, Carl still felt queasy. Three gulps of Pepto-Bismol didn't help much. And he had only a couple of hours until he was supposed to pick up Connie for their big romantic evening together.

“Hi,” she said, answering the door in a pair of tight Calvin Klein jeans and a frilly, white, scooped-neck camisole that accentuated her ripe breasts. Blond hair fell over her shoulders in soft curls. Around her neck was a thin, gold choker. Apparently, Connie never wore makeup on the job, because Carl hadn't recalled her eyes as this dark and intriguing; and he would have remembered her lush, red lips against the pale, cream-colored skin. “You're right on time,” she said, showing him inside the apartment. “You can open the wine for me.”

It was a large studio, and she had at least twenty candles flickering around the place. The overhead in the kitchen was the only source of strong light. A waterbed occupied one far corner of the room, and there were brick-and-board bookshelves, travel posters on the walls, and a large sectional sofa that looked secondhand. Early postcollege decor. Carl didn't recognize—or much like—the music on her stereo, and he noticed a Pink Floyd album resting beside it. “I like your place,” he said.

“I'm kind of a candle freak, as you can see.” She giggled and touched his arm.

She wants it
, Carl thought; but it was more like Frank Tuttle's voice than his own speaking inside him. He was still nauseous and depleted. When he'd dropped Sam off at Mrs. Kern's, she'd said he looked “a bit peaked.” Why he hadn't rescheduled with Connie he didn't know. He planned to eat very little at Ray's, and maybe by the time they finished dinner, he'd feel better. For now, his lust for this blond vision was squelched by worry and sour stomach.

“You look terrific,” he said.

“You too. I like your shirt. Hmmm, Polo, expensive.” Her hand lingered on his chest as she stroked the material.

“Where's your bathroom?”

Carl wished she'd turned up the volume on Pink Floyd, because as he sat on her toilet, he was afraid she'd hear him. He didn't even try. He got up, washed his hands, checked the medicine chest, and stole two tablets of Rolaids. He winced at his pasty reflection in the mirror.
God, please, get me through this night
, he thought. He'd be happy just to feel normal again. All he wanted was to make a good impression on her, maybe hold and kiss her a little. He wasn't asking to get laid…at least, not tonight.

He rode out another wave of nausea, took a few deep breaths, then went back to the living room. She was ensconced on the sofa. A bottle of wine, two glasses, and a tray of cheese and crackers sat on the coffee table in front of her.

“I opened the wine myself,” she said, patting the empty space beside her on the sofa.

Carl sat down next to her. Connie poured the wine. “Only a little for me, please,” he said. “I'm not much of a drinker.”

“Oh, would you rather do a bong instead?” she asked, setting the bottle down.

“Do a what?”

“I've got some really terrific Colombian stuff….”

A sickly smile froze on Carl's face. “No, thank you, Connie,” he managed to say.

“Now, don't piggy-out and load up on cheese and crackers, because din-din will be ready in twenty minutes.”

“But I was going to take you out to dinner,” he said. “We have seven-thirty reservations at Ray's.”

“Too late. The lasagna's in the oven.”

“Well, I didn't expect you to cook for me. You wait on people all week. I thought you should be waited on for a change.”

Connie reached over and squeezed his knee. “God, you're sweet, you really are, Carl.”

“I just don't want you going to all this trouble,” he said.

Her hand inched up his thigh now, and it aroused him. The combination of a hard-on and sour stomach was unsettling—just another part of his body working beyond his control. He shifted a little, hoping to camouflage the bulge in his pants.

“It's no trouble,” Connie was saying. “I love to cook. I make a mean lasagna.”

“I bet it's real rich,” he said, trying not to wince.

She nodded, then got to her feet. “Lots of spices. I don't use ground beef either. Hot Italian sausage, ground up. And there's salad, and French bread dripping in butter and garlic.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Carl said weakly.

She hunted through some books on her brick-and-board shelves. “Now, don't worry about the garlic either,” she said with a giggle. “We're having crème de menthe cordials for dessert, so our breath will be ‘kissingly fresh.'”

“That's thinking ahead,” he replied. She was kind of a dip really. Of course, he probably made her nervous. He was acting like such a zombie. Carl watched her as she bent over the bookcase, the twin orbs stretching her Calvin Kleins to their fiber limit. He forgot about his stomach for a few moments.

“I found it,” she announced, waving a photo album. “Picture time!” Connie sank down beside him and opened the photo album across their laps. Her shoulder was pressed against his, and the view of her cleavage was unavoidable. He tried not to gawk. “This is our trip to Europe,” she said. “Y'know, the one I told you about? Have you ever been? I forgot if I asked you or not.”

He smiled at her. “No. I'd like to, though.”

“Oh, you should—on your very next vacation.”

“I'm afraid it's Disney World for my next vacation,” he chuckled. “In fact, tonight is like a vacation for me. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed the company of a sweet, attractive—”

“This is Wayne, of course.” Connie was pointing to a photo of some tan, muscular, grinning moron with a brown, afro hairdo.

“Wayne,” he said. “Is that your ex-boyfriend?”

“Yeah. This is my favorite of him. I took it in Greece.”

“Um, yes, it's very nice,” Carl said. “Good color….”

“He's a massage therapist. I fell in love with his hands. I think the sun was hurting his eyes in this one. Hmm, I fell in love with his buns, too.” She turned the page and giggled.

Carl was staring at a photo of Wayne, looking over his shoulder with his back to the camera. He was naked. Carl couldn't believe she was showing him nude photos of her ex-boyfriend. Below another bare-assed shot of Wayne lying facedown on a beach towel was a photo of Connie taken from a side angle. She sat, slouched forward on the sand, her arm blocking any view of her bare breasts. Hardly a flattering picture. Connie was squinting, and she looked sunburned and peeling. There were about five folds in her stomach, and her long blond hair looked limp, and dark at the roots.

She let out a screech of protest and slapped her hand over the picture. “Oh, no fair peeking at this one,” she giggled. “I look terrible! My hair was so greasy that day.” But Connie kept taking her hand away anyway, then covering up the photo again. “We were at this nude beach in Greece. You wouldn't believe all the guys who came on to me. Oh, now, don't look. Half the pictures didn't come back from the film place. I guess some guy at the store still has them and he's getting his jollies….”

Fortunately, Wayne and Connie had their clothes back on during their trip through Italy for the next eight pages.

She talked all during dinner—mostly about Wayne and a bunch of her friends: Vicki, Simone, Randy, Donny, and Jo-Jo. The names tripped off her tongue with no explanation of who they were or how she knew them. It was as if she expected Carl to automatically know them himself. She'd mentioned JoJo eleven times before Carl finally caught on that Jo-Jo was Wayne's stupid cat. “Wayne got custody of Jo-Jo,” she said.

Carl listened to a half hour of cat stories while they sipped their crème de menthes. It struck him as ironic, since he'd decided earlier that day not to bore her with talk about his son. His stomach problems had vanished sometime back when she'd been showing him a second photo album (her and Wayne “at home”). Apathy had chased away the nausea, and he'd managed to eat her lasagna without a hitch. She was a good cook. He'd told her so a couple of times—between Wayne and Jo-Jo stories.

Connie put her hand over his. “Why don't we go back to the couch, where it's more comfy?”

Carl took to the sofa while she changed a record on the stereo. He was disappointed that she'd turned out to be a flake. The strange part was, he still wanted her. Before Eve, back when he'd been sowing his wild oats, he'd bedded a few women like Connie—dull, even irritating—yet the sex had been great. Hell, he thought he'd grown out of that callow stage. But it had been two years since he'd even necked with a woman; and Connie, despite what she lacked in personality, had three things going for her: she was gorgeous, alone with him right now, and she wanted him, too. The voice inside Carl's head was not Frank Tuttle's, but his own.

“Would you like to do that bong now?” she asked, once she had Joe Cocker groaning over the stereo.

“No thanks,” he said, stretching one arm across the top of the sofa. “But you go ahead and indulge if you want.”

She sauntered toward him. “Party pooper.” She bumped her knee against his as she stood in front of him.

“But the party hasn't even begun yet,” he said. A corny line, but she seemed to go for it. Carl reached for her hand and pulled her down into his lap.

“What do you think you're doing?” Connie asked, giggling. Her arms slid around him.

“Just this,” he whispered. Then Carl pressed his mouth to her lips for only a moment. She looked like she wanted more. He smoothed back her blond curls, then he kissed her again, his tongue sliding past her red lips. He caressed her bare shoulders. Her skin was smooth and delicate. Carl felt himself growing hard as she rocked in his lap. He knew she could feel it too, pressing against her ass. His hand moved across the ruffly chemise, then he cupped her breast, gently pinching the nipple. The material was fine and flimsy—like a second skin.

Connie ran her fingernails through his hair as Carl kissed her hungrily. His mouth slid down her neck, and she shivered as he breathed into the hollow at the base of her throat. He buried his face between her breasts—so warm, silky, and firm. It had been so long since he'd done this, he was hoping that his movements weren't too clumsy. And he wished he really liked her.