The One In My Heart

In fact, I’d swerve wide to avoid me altogether. But that was neither here nor there.

My elegant new hypothesis thrilled and scared me in equal measure. If it was true—and I had a tremendous intuition that it was—then it changed everything. The man I loved didn’t just return my feelings; he was crazy in love with me.

I took his hand and laid it over my heart. Could he feel it beating with astonished glee? Lacing our fingers together, I luxuriated in his closeness and smiled hugely.

It was a whole new world.


I WOKE UP TO THE aroma of fresh coffee brewing. A greyish light filtered in from the edges of the curtains—an overcast day outside. My dress and my underthings, last seen on the floor of the living room, had been neatly gathered in a chair, next to the lingerie Bennett had bought me for Valentine’s Day.

No crotchless panties in the bag. He did get completely impractical items—I might have whistled softly at a set of transparent bras and panties—but there were also pieces that were both pretty and wearable.

As I put his pajamas back on over the see-through set—why not?—I studied the room. Above the fireplace hung a Pissarro, possibly the one he had mentioned to my father years ago. But otherwise it was empty of personal touches. The rumpled bedspread and his vintage Patek Philippe watch on the nightstand were the only signs that he’d slept here.

But whereas earlier I’d have felt an unhappy weight that I’d fallen in love with a man who didn’t betray himself even in his own home, now I was…reassured. After all, my house, despite its coziness, was just as opaque in its own way: There was nothing of my mother. The stacks of photographs that she had sent me, the ones I used to pore over, had all been banished to the attic, denied a place among the pictures and memorabilia that constituted a visual record of my life.

A real relationship was beyond me. But in a fake one with a completely enamored Bennett, I had a chance. And the more opaque he remained, the more protective he was of himself, the more likely that we would continue exactly as we were: fun dates with my friends, sleepovers, and everything else that was desirable in a relationship without requiring either of us to open up.

I bounced down the stairs. Bennett was in the kitchen, hair still mussed from sleep, flipping pancakes in a San Francisco Marathon T-shirt that had a hole on the right shoulder. My heart tugged—he was unbearably appealing in his domesticity.

“I thought your culinary repertoire was limited to grilled cheese sandwiches,” I said, leaning a hip against the kitchen counter and mentally adding “yummy breakfast” to the list of pluses that characterized our current arrangement.

“And you thought wrong. Until I turned twenty-one and came into those paintings I could auction off, Moira and I were pretty much broke. So the boy toy cooked.”

Spatula in hand, he kissed me on the lips. We were practically a Norman Rockwell couple on this lazy Saturday morning, weren’t we?

He returned to the stove and cracked eggs into a different pan. The sizzle of protein joined the aroma of buttery carbs. I tried to recall whether my real boyfriends had ever made me breakfast—only to realize that I’d never spent the night with anyone. That I’d always been the girl who went home by herself, no matter how late the hour.

“Speaking of Moira, isn’t that MoMA retrospective of hers starting this weekend?” Instead of sour grapes, I was feeling a lot of goodwill toward Moira—without her, there wouldn’t be this perfect fake relationship. “Have you been worrying about your naked pictures?”

“I’ve made my peace with the fact that there are going to be some. I’ll just say I occasionally modeled for her when I was her tenant.”

He plated the eggs and the pancakes and carried them out to the breakfast nook, with its big bay window facing the balcony. That was when I realized it was snowing outside—and had been for hours. A good four inches of powder blanketed the parapet. The potted evergreens along the balustrade too were covered in snow. The windows across the streets were lit from within by a soft, golden light—the whole scene looking like something out of an old-fashioned Christmas card.

“So much for a walk in the park for us,” said Bennett, following my line of sight. “Do you have any plans today?”

Was he about to offer further proof to buttress my new hypothesis? “My grad students are out of town this weekend, so I have to go into the lab this evening.”

Bennett returned to the kitchen to pour coffee into two cups. “That means you’re free during the day. What do you say we actually watch that movie from last night and then go to Chinatown for lunch?”

Ding! Breakfast made from scratch, movie, and lunch in Chinatown—if this wasn’t love, then I didn’t know diamonds from graphite.