“Bean sprout butt, you’re up!” one of the boys from the party hollers. Toby turns away from Ted and heads in the opposite direction of the party, toward the locker rooms.
Ted reels around and heads after Elinor down the dark, narrow hallway. Tacky red-and-black carpet with a crazy pattern of pins and balls spins under his feet.
“Shoes!” a voice shouts at him over the PA system. “No shoes outside.” Ted crashes through the back exit doors, smashing his hip in the process. He finds Elinor climbing into the car.
“What are you going to do,” he calls after her, “leave me here?”
Elinor rolls down the car window. “You can get a ride home with the birthday party.”
Ted reaches the car, out of breath.
She turns to him, a deep red high in her cheeks. “You didn’t tell me she had a kid.”
“El, he knows I’m married.” Ted pants and spreads his hands against the car door, as though trying to hold the car in place. It’s still light out. The air is cooling, but the asphalt emanates heat.
“So you’re not really cheating on me with an eight-year-old?” Elinor starts the engine.
“He’s ten. He’s small for his age.” Without intending to, Ted says this defensively.
“Jesus, Ted.” Elinor sounds more vexed than angry. “Okay. So you broke up with him. You broke up with your former mistress’s ten-year-old kid.”
Ted nods.
“What the hell is the matter with us?” Elinor shouts into the parking lot. Two veins emerge like cords in her neck. “Why do we make life so damn hard!”
“El, please . . .”
“Please what?”
“Please let’s not fight. I’ve told you everything there is to know. That’s it, I promise you. I ran into her while you were in Ohio, and I helped her kid once with his homework because he’s struggling and they haven’t found a tutor for him yet. That’s it. It’s over.”
“How many times is it going to be over, Ted?” She frowns at the windshield, as though concentrating on heavy traffic.
“Okay. I know,” Ted says.
“He’s a cute kid.” Elinor sounds calm. She grips the steering wheel, narrowing her eyes. “Doesn’t look anything like his mother.”
She bends down and her head disappears as she fumbles under the dashboard. Then she reappears, handing her bowling shoes through the window to Ted.
“Wait, I have to go inside and pay.” As Ted turns toward the bowling alley, he hears the car clunk into drive.
“Yeah. Take a taxi, would you?” Elinor’s a little apologetic as she says this. She starts driving away from him. “I’m going to move out of the house,” she calls over her shoulder.
“What? You can’t . . . How are we married if you move out of the house and you’re not even wearing your wedding ring?”
Elinor slows down, turns her head, and gives him a you-can’t-be-serious look.
“Listen, I won’t tutor Toby anymore. I wasn’t going to anyway. I mean, I—” He picks up a stone, throws it at the back wall of the bowling alley.
Elinor steps on the gas, gravel whipping up behind the rear wheels.
“See you at the counselor?” Ted shouts.
Elinor brakes suddenly, lurching forward against the seat belt. She leans out the window, shaking her head. “I don’t think so. I need a break from dating you.” She motions at the bowling alley. “Or whatever the hell this is.” The car jerks forward again. She speeds out of the parking lot, not even looking in the rearview mirror.
“Let me move out!” Ted hollers after her, cradling the dusty bowling shoes to his chest. The tastes of ketchup and beer burn in his throat. Dusk closes in on him. “Let me!”
6
There is always something wrong with the men Gina loves: They drink too much or break things or bounce checks or can’t hold down jobs. Ted is a new kind of wrong. Married. Add that to the list of unsuitable attributes.
Why can’t she fall for any of the men she should love? Bob, for example. After the first time they slept together, he told her he loved her and wanted to take her to Paris. He wanted her to move in with him. Gina continued to go to dinner and movies with him, but there was no chemistry. When he picked her up for dates, his nervous enthusiasm made her want to jump out of the car. It didn’t help that he was the worst kisser on the planet. As a clump of spongy tongue that didn’t seem to have a tip shoved its way into her mouth, all she could think of was how she wanted a drink of water.
“To hell with chemistry,” her friend Donna said. “Bob’s a partner at one of the top law firms in the Valley! Chemistry will come later.” Gina hoped this would happen. But in her experience, chemistry never comes later; it fades.
She wants to travel to Paris. She wants to make out under the Eiffel Tower. With Ted.
Is she one of those dysfunctional women who can only love men who don’t love her? But Shane loves her, and she loved him at first. There was certainly chemistry there. She fell in love with him at a bar—not the best venue, admittedly—where he played in a band. While the lead singer leapt around the stage like an MTV wannabe, Shane closed his eyes and strummed his bass with somber concentration that touched Gina. His hair, black and shaggy and down to his shoulders, made a frame around his pale face. He looked lean and fit in his simple jeans and T-shirt. When she finally met him—a week later, between sets—she couldn’t believe the startling contrast of his blue eyes with that jet-black hair and fair complexion. Sex with Shane was sweet and intense at the same time. He’s probably the best lover Gina’s ever had. While he’s almost forty, he has the body of a college boy—thin but muscular and sinewy, with a smooth chest and ribbed abs that he doesn’t have to work to maintain. He lacks the vanity to work out or obsess over his diet. His shaggy haircut and his clothes—jeans, T-shirts, and flannel shirts—are sort of 1970s, which Gina found endearing at first—as though he could take her back to an easier time.
In the mornings, Shane always cooked Gina breakfast, singing silly songs as he flipped cheese omelets and smeared toast with preserves. Even though he’s a guy’s guy—with the Marlboros and small tattoo of a snake on the inside of his ankle—he’s remarkably domestic. His mother was killed in a car accident when he was sixteen, and his father worked nights, so he had to take care of his four younger sisters. As a teenager, he taught himself how to cook and do laundry and even iron. So he doesn’t think anything of vacuuming Gina’s condo, or being silly just to make her laugh.
Gina soon learned that the problem with Shane is booze. He drinks too much and keeps insane hours and drives too fast and smokes and swears. When he drinks, his mood evolves from affectionate to playful to sarcastic to sullen to angry. Once the rage sets in, he’s in constant motion, pacing and ranting. The tirades aren’t directed at Gina; usually they’re abstract screeds about the music industry or the inattentive patrons at the bar. Still, the intensity of his anger rages like an out-of-control fire, its randomness suggesting that it could easily turn on her.
Then there’s the jealousy. One night Gina made the mistake of talking about Ted. It was before she’d become involved with him. Shane asked how her job was going—who her favorite client was. Having grown up with sisters, he was good at making conversation like this. She said she couldn’t get over how grateful this one guy Ted was for her ideas, how starved he seemed for a little praise and encouragement. His wife was this high-powered attorney who didn’t seem to pay attention to him. This wife sounded fiercely independent and not the least bit needy—two characteristics Gina secretly admired.
“I’ll bet this guy loves you!” Shane said accusingly, slamming his hand on the table. He was four beers into the evening, each bottle making his voice louder. Gina quickly rerouted the conversation into an overexaggeration of how out of shape and heavy and old Ted was, then she asked Shane questions about the band.
Two shots of tequila later, Shane hit her. It wasn’t a hit, so much as a shove. Still, it hurt and left a bruise on Gina’s arm. She had
made the mistake of saying that she couldn’t blame people at the bar for talking while the band was playing. She’d even chatted with a guy during the last set. Then Shane pushed her against the kitchen wall. In the instant in which she was pinned there, trapped with his red-eyed rage and hot beer breath bearing down on her, she fell out of love with him. In a flash, she saw the potential for Shane to hurt her, to hurt her son, and boom it was over. She’d like to think it was that rational, that noble, but really it wasn’t. Gina simply fell in and out of love instantaneously. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was sudden, like a thunderclap.
This is how it happened with Ted. He sat across her desk at the club one morning, telling her how he’d spent the day before helping his neighbor find a lost dog. The dog had run off up the hill behind their houses and Ted tromped through the woods and brambles with the guy for two hours, until they finally found the dog in another neighbor’s backyard, eating the cat’s food. The dog was coated with burs and Ted performed minor paw surgery, using nail clippers to yank one out from between the poor fella’s toes. Gina bent down to retie her sneaker, listening, laughing, admiring Ted’s kindness. When she lifted her head, Ted’s handsomeness overwhelmed her. She felt heat emanate from her chest up into her face. Damn, I love this guy. Shoot, shoot, shoot. This married guy! For weeks after that, Gina tried not to look Ted in the eye. It was his face that got to her. A big Irish face with full lips that broke easily into a broad smile. Deep brown eyes and gumdrop earlobes that demanded nibbling.
She tried to put Ted out of her mind. Even though she’d broken up with Shane, she called and encouraged him to attend AA. She offered to go with him. Shane said you weren’t supposed to go with your mother. Gina knew this sarcasm was the Jack-and-Coke talking. But then Shane did quit drinking and started calling Gina every night. He missed her. He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. They spent hours talking on the phone. She said everything she could think of to be supportive and helpful. They slept together again and it was passionate and slow and perfect and she didn’t love him anymore. (Would her heart ever consult her in these matters?)
Meanwhile, Gina learned that Ted was having problems with his wife. One day during his workout, Gina suggested that he and his wife hike together on the weekends, because exercising with a partner is more fun. “On a hike, you’re outside and talking, and you don’t even notice that you’re getting a great workout,” she said.
“You’re making the assumption that she would do anything with me,” Ted said.
The sadness and frustration in his voice surprised Gina. She tried to hide her alarm, turning away to crank up the elevation on his treadmill. “Isn’t it always that way?” she said cheerfully. “You start out thinking you have so much in common then before you know it . . . There was this one guy I dated who said he loved swap meets, then as soon as we got serious he wouldn’t go with me.” What the heck was she saying? Pure babble. She wasn’t sure how she always managed to be so cheerful. It was something she’d pulled off since elementary school. She was the pretty girl who was always cheerful. Not prissy, but buoyant. Optimistic. Never for herself, mind you, but always for others. That’s why she became a personal trainer.
Ted broke into a run on the treadmill, smiling down at her. His wife didn’t want to do anything with him? What the heck? She’d be all over that man. She shuddered and faked a headache and cut their session short, letting Ted finish up and stretch on his own.
The first time they slept together, at her house, Ted kissed her so much (light, warm, moist kisses all over her body), and hugged her so tightly, and came so hard, that she couldn’t help but love him more.
Then Barry, a successful concert promoter, asked her out by a mountain of shrimp at Healthy Oats. Gina immediately said yes, any stranger anxiety being quelled by the fact that she’d do almost anything to unglue her heart from married Ted. She willed every bone in her body to be attracted to Barry. But he was . . . slick. The way he called her “babe” made her feel like a showgirl—like an accessory along the lines of his Rolex or Jaguar. Still, it was better than dating Bob, whom she broke up with because he always lavished her with gifts and fancy dinners, and she knew she couldn’t reciprocate.
She had never been attracted to anyone more than Ted, and yet Ted wasn’t even as good looking as Shane. While Ted’s face was handsome, his body was banged up and lopsided from years of playing football and soccer. One ankle was swollen like an orange, from the time he’d broken it playing basketball. His knees and shins were dinged with reddish scars that almost looked like burns. Gina liked to kiss every one of these imperfections. Then she’d run her tongue up the insides of Ted’s thighs until he shuddered. She had never loved anyone so fiercely, and she hated that it was out of her control.
Her clients had no willpower when it came to eating and working out. Gina had no resolve when it came to controlling her heart. Dove Bars? Who cares? She didn’t get it. Why were people so insane over food? One client, who wasn’t even heavy, tortured herself over chocolate pudding cups. “I had one,” she’d say desperately to Gina, as though she’d set a building on fire. “Okay,” Gina would encourage. “Let’s move past that and get on the bike and get those endorphins going!” Eat a salad, she wanted to say, eat a bowl of strawberries, eat whatever. Who cares? It’s just food. Get a grip! Yet when it came to Ted, Gina could not get a grip.
She was blissfully happy in the twenty-four hours before she saw him and while she was with him, then overwhelmingly sad when they were apart. She knew this wasn’t healthy. You couldn’t diet or exercise this toxin out of your bloodstream.
Gina fought the urge to tell Ted that she loved him. She was too proud to be the first one to say it. Potentially the only one. No, that wasn’t it. She was afraid that as soon as she told him, he would run. To men, the words I love you seemed to mean: “I want something from you.” As though you wanted to harvest a dang kidney from them. Gina didn’t want anything from Ted. She didn’t want anything and she wanted everything. She didn’t want to break up his marriage. She just wanted to sleep with him every day. No, every other day would suffice. Yes, every other day would do. Some days they’d do it twice or even three times. Then Ted would trudge home to his wife.
I love you I love you I love you! she wanted to holler over their Cobb salads at lunch.
Two months passed and Ted never said that he loved her and probably he didn’t. He was married. He loved his wife. He was a good man. Being a good man meant he felt awful about sleeping with Gina. She could tell by his huge sighs of desperation as he sat on the edge of the bed before showering and dressing to go home. Yet he continued to invite her to lunch, to cover her face with kisses, to moan the words “beautiful girl” as he came inside her. Once, she turned her head so he wouldn’t see her cry.
How could Ted’s wife reject him? “She won’t even look at me,” he told Gina as he climbed onto the StairMaster. He was sad about this. Sad, and guilty for sleeping with Gina. Which was why Gina knew she had to break it off. She had never slept with a married man before. What kind of morally bankrupt tart sleeps with married men? Besides, she didn’t like being someone’s frigging chocolate pudding cup.
So it was a blessing when Toby’s father called to say that Toby needed to move back in with Gina. It was a blessing when Elinor Mackey confronted Gina and Ted, and they broke up. She would forget Ted and fall in love with the right man, sooner or later. (Soon, please!) Meanwhile, she’d devote her attention solely to her son.
It had broken her heart two years earlier when Toby announced he wanted to live in Maine with his dad full-time and attend school there. Maybe Gina should have seen this coming. Toby had reached a stage where he was retreating from her. He didn’t want to cuddle anymore. He no longer crept to her room in the middle of the night, frightened, wanting to sing songs. Although he was becoming a big boy, she still loved to hug her son—to pick him up and swing him in the air and tickle him until he begged for mercy. “There is not honey be
hind my ears!” he’d shriek as she wrestled him to the ground and pushed back his big ears to kiss the soft pink skin behind them. “There is, right there!” she’d insist.
Touch establishes the conduit through which our children feel safety, Gina had read in an article. But shortly after his eighth birthday, Toby announced in the car one morning on the way to school that he didn’t want to be hugged anymore.
“Oh, of course!” Gina said, trying not to show her hurt feelings. “You mean when I drop you off at school.”
Toby fidgeted and scratched. “At home, either,” he said, looking out the window.
“Okay, sweetie,” Gina said. “Have a good day!” she cheered after him as he climbed out of the car. She clenched her jaw so she wouldn’t cry, a sore ache starting in her ears.
“Thank you,” he said, in an unusually polite, grown-up tone. Then he closed the door and lumbered toward the school without waving good-bye.
This had to be normal. Especially with boys. Gina made a point of subduing her physical affection, particularly in public. She felt she understood what her son must be going through; it couldn’t be easy having divorced parents. (Actually, she was never even married to Toby’s father.) Yet when Toby moved back in to live with Gina, she was in no way prepared for his disdain. She had looked forward to his return—getting out and laundering the Spider-Man sheets, arranging his little desk with school supplies, buying granola bars and apples for his lunch box. When Toby stepped off the plane, he seemed more gorgeous than ever to her. Those eyelashes were to die for. In contrast with his sandy hair, Toby’s lashes were impossibly dark, long, and curled at the ends—like false eyelashes! His tanned arms were covered with blond hairs, freckles, and scabs. She loved his scruffiness. He was still a little boy! She resisted the urge to hug him and instead teasingly ran her fingers through his hair.
“Mom!” Toby said with irritation.
“What!” she replied, pretending that he wasn’t killing her.