We Could Be Beautiful (14 page)

“None of that is so bad,” he said, stroking my hair. I could feel his heart beating under my ear. His heart, his body, the needs of our bodies. That’s when I realized maybe he just needed to eat. Maybe he was just hungry.

“Are you hungry, babe? I have dinner ready for you.” It was on the table. I had even put a cover on top so it wouldn’t get cold.

“Did you make it?”

“I made a phone call when I ordered it.”

He laughed. “Catherine.” He squeezed me. “We’re going to have to get you to start cooking. It’s so nice to cook. I love cooking.”

“I love ordering. I got you Chinese! You can’t be mad.”

“I would never be mad at you.” He looked at the table. “Looks delightful. Where’s your plate?”

“I already ate.”

I sat with him while he ate the spring rolls and then the beef and broccoli he liked so much. “This is delicious,” he said, and leaned down to feed Herman a piece of beef, which was gross. I told myself not to be judgmental.

“You look so adorable when you eat,” I said, flipping my hair.

“You look so adorable always.”

“Mmm.” I reached my legs out and touched his knees with my toes under the table. We could see them through the glass.

He put his napkin down, took my feet, held them. His arms were so long. And we just looked at each other for a while like that, just enjoying our dining room, and us in it, under the steady glow of the neon tapestry.

•

Herman followed us to the bedroom. William took off his shirt, took off my shirt. Herman sat in the corner and began to pant. I had gotten used to him watching us. It probably wouldn’t have been the same without him there.

He went down on me that night, and I shuddered in a way I had never shuddered. In that moment I knew he was definitely, definitely the one.

Afterwards, I expected us to make love in the traditional way, the way we always did. But instead he lifted himself off me, stood up on the bed, and pulled my arms up until I was standing there with him. “Catherine,” he said, moving my hair off my shoulder and kissing my neck, and then biting my neck and squeezing my sides. He was in his animal mood, he couldn’t get enough of me—I loved it. “Can we try something new?” He turned my body away from him so he was behind me and lowered us to the bed.

At first I liked it better. It seemed to hurt less. And I was feeling very open to the pleasures of sex at this moment. It still wasn’t painless—not even close—but it was better. And then he said, “Sit up for a second?” So I did. And when he pulled me back down, he entered my ass. I thought it was an accident. “Oh my God,” I said. But he was already thrusting, he couldn’t help it, the animal had taken over. “Is this okay?” His voice was so sweet—he was so sweet, I loved him—but his body was merciless, it didn’t stop. He clenched my sides, rocking me with him. His ring had turned around on his finger and it pressed into me hard, the metal pressed right into my ribs. “I don’t know if I can do this—it hurts,” I said, and he said, “You can, you can,” his breath heavy. I clenched my teeth. I was waiting to rip open, I was waiting for the sound of ripping open. Herman had curled into himself. He was whimpering. I was whimpering. “Is it okay? Are you okay, my darling?” William asked, thrusting over and over and over and over and over. “I—” I said, but I could barely speak, it was too much. He came like crazy. This was clearly the best sex he’d had with me. And that was good, I wanted to make him feel good. But I also felt terrible. What had just happened?

He put his arms around me. “Are you okay, are you okay?” he kept saying. He held me in a tight lock. I felt small and breakable—my bones were the wishbones on a chicken. I was paralyzed by the welling of tears. My throat tightened. I didn’t move. I was exhausted. I stared at the turquoise ring on his finger. I wondered if he and Gwen had had sex like this. I wondered how she had reacted. “Please, please, tell me you’re okay, please talk to me.” I was faced away from him. That’s how my body had landed. He got up and knelt by the bed in front of me, so his face was very close to my face. He touched my hair. Looking at him, I didn’t want to cry anymore. His face was flushed and concerned. I loved how concerned he was about me. I remember one sweat droplet rolled down his forehead in that moment. He was sweatier than usual that night.

“I’m just surprised,” I said. “I didn’t know we were doing anal.” I forced a laugh, which sent a pang down my spine.

“I’m sorry, babe, I should have been clearer with you. I’m so sorry. I just—I got caught up in the moment.” He looked ashamed, and then he looked at the floor.

“It’s okay, honey.”

“I worry you don’t trust me now.”

“No, William,” I said. “Come here, come lie next to me.” And when he did, I looked into his glassy eyes and said, “I trust you, don’t worry. Of course I trust you.”

•

When I called St. Patrick’s, the woman who answered the phone told me they would have no weddings for the next two and a half years. They were closed for construction. I was secretly pleased about this. I wanted to be open-minded for him, but I was very judgmental of Catholics, and of all religions, and had been since my Sarah Lawrence days. I hadn’t been brought up with religion and I didn’t understand it. I thought God was an imaginary friend to people who couldn’t admit they were talking to themselves.

“If you’d like to start the process, you would begin by presenting the baptismal certificates of both parties,” the woman said.

“My husband was baptized there, actually.”

“How wonderful, dear. Is he still a parishioner?”

The word
parishioner
stuck out. She used it so conversationally.

“Yes,” I lied, “he just hasn’t been in a while.”

“Well, you should both come out and see us soon.” She pronounced
out
like a Canadian. I pictured her as a squat little Canadian who wore a cross the size of a banana around her neck at all times, even when she went swimming.

“And if the bride wasn’t baptized, what can we do about that?”

“It would be a mixed marriage, in that case.”

“Mixed?” Were we talking about race relations? I ripped off a piece of my stationery. My initials were embossed at the top: C.L.W. I uncapped a pen. I doodled a cross. Jean Paul Gaultier came to mind.

“Yes, mixed, dear. Where do you attend services?”

“I don’t go to church. I’m not Catholic. My fiancé is Catholic.”

“I see. Ideally, the priest of one’s regular congregation marries the couple.”

“So we have to go to church?”

“It is recommended, yes.”

I imagined going to church. For two and a half years. “I worry it’s too long to wait.”

“I know it may seem like a long time, but given that you will be married for eternity, it’s not so long.”

I wrote the word
eternity
on my pad. And then I thought of something good to say. “Well, my mother is old, and she really wants to see us get married before she dies.”

“I understand, dear. That makes absolute sense to me.”

“Thanks for your time.”

“Good luck, dear. May the Lord be with you.”

•

That night William got home late after a client dinner. He kissed my forehead. “I’m going to go for a run.”

He had started going for long runs on the Hudson at night. It kind of bothered me, which I knew was unfair. He worked so hard, and he still wanted to exercise. I should be happy about that.

“Okay, babe, have fun.”

He left and returned an hour later with a healthy flush on his face. I was in bed, surrounded by a semicircle of bridal magazines. In an effort to feel less crazy and more in control, I had decided color coding with Post-its would be a good idea. Pink for yes, green for no, yellow for maybe. Then I had decided blue could mean maybe/yes and purple could mean maybe/no, which felt good for about five minutes, and then I felt insane. I chucked everything onto the floor while he showered, and waited until he was relaxed and in bed to tell him about the two-and-a-half-year wait.

“You think it’s too long,” he said. He took a sip of water from the glass on the nightstand. Herman curled up in his crotch.

“I think it’s a long time, don’t you?”

“My mother wanted me to get married there very much.” He looked at the sky through the skylight. What did he see up there? Did he see what I saw? Stars? Or were those God’s freckles to him?

“Well, there’s another St. Patrick’s in the city. Did you know that? It’s not the cathedral, it’s the ‘old cathedral.’ I found it today in my Google searches. It’s in Nolita, and the pictures look really nice.” What appealed to me most about this other St. Patrick’s was that you only had to book three months out. And the neighborhood—I liked the neighborhood. “Do you think your mom would notice the difference?”

He considered this. It was a good sign. I stroked his cheek while he was considering. “Let me think about it,” he said.

He kissed my forehead, turned off the light. In the dark I said, “The church woman asked me if we were parishioners on the phone.”

He forced a laugh. “You say ‘church woman’ like it’s a bad thing to be, Catherine.”

“Sorry, I know. I’m trying to be open-minded.”

“What did you say?”

“I lied.”

“You lied to a nun?”

“Oh God, was she a nun? I mean gosh, babe—sorry.”

William put his arm around me. “Would you like to go to church with me sometime?”

“I wouldn’t go without you, that’s for sure.”

“Let’s go then. To the old cathedral. Let’s see how we feel there. Would you like that?”

“If you want me to go, I’ll go.”

He cradled my skull in his big, warm hands. This was what it felt like to be safe. “Will you do anything I ask you to do?” He laughed.

I pressed my nose against the smooth skin of his neck. I inhaled the scent of him like it was a drug. I always went stupid around him, and in bed it was worse. “Probably,” I said.

12

C
hurch was what it looked like in the movies: glossy brown pews and a red carpet that rolled down the center aisle to the stage, where the priest in small glasses and gray hair looked just like the pope. He wore a long white robe embellished with gold. A few other men onstage also wore white robes, and sat in chairs. This was confusing. Who were they? One, a young Latino man, appeared to be sleeping. Another twisted the tapered end of his long Merlin beard with great concentration. A man in a Pat Robertson outfit (cobalt-blue blazer and corn-yellow tie) stepped up to the microphone. His black hair was slicked back like a mobster’s. I didn’t trust anything he was about to say.

We were lit from above like in a bad dressing room. But the stained glass was exquisite—it couldn’t have been better. And the intricate detail behind the stage—twelve alcoves holding twelve apostles, marvelously carved—reminded me of Rome. Five biblical palm fronds stuck out of a pot in front of the altar. Did that mean something? Off to the side were buckets of flowers arranged in an irregular pattern, as if different people had dropped them off at different times. Their colors and forms didn’t match at all: red roses, sunflowers, something pink, something orange. Between the apostles hung a realistic portrait of Jesus, frozen in the stance of the most flamboyant shot-putter I had ever seen, about to throw the ball that did not exist in his empty hand. At least here, though, he was joyful and alive. In the nearby sculpture of him, he was very dramatically dead: his arms outstretched and nailed to the cross, his head hanging limply, the flaps in his stone loincloth suggesting a strong wind. As if the slow, torturous death in the story weren’t enough, the weather had also been shitty that day?

William had said, “Perhaps the black dress with the longer sleeves,” and so I had worn that. It was hard to know if I was overdressed or underdressed. The woman in front of me wore flip-flops and cutoffs. Another woman wore a full face of makeup and a tailored green dress. Her boyfriend wore a tight checkered shirt tucked deeply into tight black jeans. He looked constricted. He reminded me of the
American Psycho
guy. William wore a suit and tie. He was definitely overdressed.

It smelled like a musty wooden cupboard filled with old-lady perfume. Which might have been coming off the old lady next to me, who was clad in a Chanel tweed jacket and skirt despite the weather. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Marge. How are you today?”

“Fine.”

“Are you new?”

“Yes.”

“I can tell.”

“Hello. I’m William.” He reached across me to shake her hand.

“Marge,” she said, her breath hot on my face. It smelled like mushroom soup from a can.

“Have you been to church before?”

“No.”

“I can tell. I’ll walk you through it, don’t worry,” Marge said, adopting me. She appeared to be alone, no husband, not even a Golden Girl friend. I thought that was very sad. Being old and alone was just the saddest thing in the world. I may have felt superior with William by my side, and also safe, and I hoped that later, in the winter of our lives, William and I would either die at the exact same time or I would be the one to go first.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.” We stood. The organ started. It sounded like haunted-house music. The priest opened a huge Babar-sized book and began to sing-read the words. It was odd. He did not commit to song or to regular speech—he was sing-speaking. When he was done, a woman in mean glasses, who looked like the type of person who would work at the DMV, spoke to us in a thick, smoky Bronx accent. I had no idea what she was talking about. Then one of the white robes took the spiral staircase up to the turret and spoke to us from there, reading again from the Babar book. There were so many characters onstage, so much to watch. Church was like going to the theater. Except for the participation element, which I thought was a lot to ask.

We stood up, we sat, we stood up, we sat. The pews were so uncomfortable. A young man in a striped T-shirt a few rows ahead obviously felt the same way: he kept rubbing his shoulders. Sometimes we knelt. People clasped their hands in prayer. I made mine into fists, which felt like a generous compromise.