She imagined what it would be like. With the sun beating on the windshield and the cars droning down the highway, she daydreamed. His eyes intent upon her face, watching her eyes, her mouth, following measure for measure whatever she had been saying. Lord, even she could not remember what had been said, but he listened, could no doubt recount their words together, whereas she lived in the flow of time, lost to sense and fixed on impression. She imagined how his hands would feel upon her bare skin, gently tracing the contours of her hips, remembering, rediscovering, how he would look and drink her in, the rough friction of his chin, his thundering pulse. The gasp as she coaxed him inside, how she would find his pleasure points with her nails. He speaks her name, she draws him even closer. Any closer and I'll be in back of you, and they laugh at the old joke. And laughing together they feel closer. Not so much his nakedness and certainly not hers. She did not imagine how they looked now, but saw them young and perfect. How when he said her name now, it seemed at once a surprise and a comfort, reenchanted from their past, a time she rarely thought of any longer, and the words from his lips, each syllable delicate and uttered again for the first time. Margaret. Maggie. My own. And traveling home to Paul, she realized the differences between the two men, though she had long thought them so very similar in kind: in how they spoke and joked, and complemented, through their passion for her, the strange disassociation she felt around most other men. Paul was her type, she had decided, because of how much he reminded her of her first love, Jackson. But until she had seen Jackson again, she had not realized how dissimilar the two men were. Perhaps she had overlooked the character and shape of their souls.
It had been a mistake, she thought, to see Jackson again after all these years, after life had played out as it inevitably and relentlessly does. The phone rang on an early September afternoon, the slack hour between lunch and Ericas arrival home after high school. When she picked up the receiver expecting Paul, dry cleaning or dinner menu on his mind, she was shocked to hear Jackson say hello, his voice rip through the wire and worm into her brain. She knew it immediately, even after decades, and the sound of her own name as he said it pierced her to the core. Margaret weakened, sat and listened as he explained, affecting nonchalance, how he had run into her sister, Diane, and her husband, Joe, one evening at the Old Ebbitt Grill, how they had recognized each other, despite the gray hair and vicissitudes of time. The Cicognas insisted he join them, and they had pleasantly strolled through the memories, and talked mostly about you, Margaret, you, and when he had asked, Diane wrote down the number, said you would be glad, and why not pick up the phone, he finally decided. It would be wonderful to catch up. Are you ever in Washington? Let me take you and Paul and what's-your-daughter's-name to a night on the town.
At the mention of her husband, Margaret reclaimed the intervening years. Paul, yes, Paul. They chatted about jobs and kids and aches and joys. She took his number, promised to call when they were in town, though truth be told, we don't come down to D.C. so often anymore, but if so, I will arrange a visit. She hung up the phone just as Erica walked in, sweater tied around her waist, perspiration glistening on her bare neck. So young. She wondered if her daughter was having sex with that boy. His dark curly hair long as a girl's. The loose-limbed way he walks around the house, insouciant, challenging Paul. The fresh brow, bright eyes, the tightness of his skin along the jawline. She could imagine them wild together, but just as quickly banished the image, or at least erased her daughter from the naked picture. Surely, they did it. Things are so different now than when she and Jackson were young like them. Sex was more furtive, fugitive, sudden. Nowadays they take their time, find a place, and imitate what could be seen any night of the week at the movies right in their hometown. She and Jackson had never even been completely naked together. Nowadays they waddle bare as babies in the mud, weave flowers in their lover's hair. Born too early in this misbegotten century. But still. He was wonderful in those days, not that Paul was not passionate in his own way. But Jackson had loved her so, foolishly so.
At dinner, she dropped the notion into the conversation, and deftly, the idea became his at once. “Diane's got a birthday at the beginning of next month,” she began. “I haven't seen her in ages. Maybe the three of us—”
“But, Mom, I've got school, and Wiley and I have plans.”
“Busy time at the clinic, dear,” Paul said, and without missing a beat, “You should feel free to go, though. Have some alone time—”
“Wouldn't think of it.”