ANYWAY. Alan was telling me a story about his mother and father and how they fell in love, that it was a rocky road, just like the ice cream, but not as sweet.
“Ice cream,” I said. “That sounds good.”
When I was dating Alan I would eat ice cream every night after dinner, until my hips and belly stretched out and over the top of my jeans. I didn’t care one bit. This was when I was in graduate school in Chicago. I had moved there after a few drunken, poverty-stricken years in New York. I’d had it with trying to find my way drunkenly from the front of a bar to the bathroom, only to return and find my drink gone, my wallet empty, and the guy I’d been flirting with all night out in front of the bar making out with someone else. Or worse yet, he would be waiting, the scent of cab fare home mixed with cigarette smoke and hormones wafting from his body. When a grope in the backseat of a taxi seems fair trade for a quick ride uptown at 3:00 AM, it’s time to leave town. I had decided I would only return with at least a master’s and some sort of future. So I worked long days in the lab, roasting my brain slowly over an open spit, and at night I wanted to treat myself. I liked Alan and I liked ice cream.
I got up and went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer, and pulled out a pint of my favorite kind, mint–chocolate chip. I like my ice cream simple, not with cookie dough or M&Ms or hot sauce or sprinkles. Just cold and sweet with a bit of chocolate in it.
“They met in high school,” he told me. “Walter and Naomi, the most unlikely couple in town. That’s what the senior class voted them—‘Least Likely Couple.’ And here they are, thirty-odd years later, still married. Goes to show you what the rest of those kids knew.”
If I heard that today I’d probably reply, “Yeah, and I bet half of them are divorced now anyway. Or dead.”
Instead I said: “They were jealous of their true love, that’s all.”
“Mom was one of the prettiest girls in school. You should see pictures of her from then, Holly. Next time you come over, I’ll show you. Dark hair, red lips, a little zaftig but that was more desirable back then. I mean, it’s still desirable for me of course.” He reached toward me and pinched my rear. “But she was just gorgeous, my mom. Everyone said she looked like Elizabeth Taylor, but Jewish.”
I had met his mother once. I didn’t see the Elizabeth Taylor resemblance, but I had to admit she was a remarkably manicured woman. Her hair, trimmed short, was dyed the color of a fresh cup of coffee with milk, and lay precisely in place. Her creamy linen suit was tailored and wrinkle-free, as if she had freshly pressed it moments before seeing me. And with an artist’s eye she had deeply and intensely outlined and colored her lips with a frosty mocha tint. I pictured her knowing the name of everyone who worked at her salon, whether they cut her hair or not.
Me, I get haircuts so infrequently I can’t remember where I got it cut last. Though when I was dating Alan, I started making trips to salons more often. He bought me a gift certificate once for an upscale place near my apartment, which made me think he wanted me to be a more upscale girl.
“Use it for anything you want, sweetheart. Hair color, manicure, waxing. Ask the girls there. They’ll help,” he said.
I hadn’t known I needed help.
I SAT DOWN at the table and spooned some ice cream in my mouth.
“So Mom was a stunner,” Alan continued. “But Dad? Not so much. He was balding before his sixteenth birthday, plus he has that hawk-nose thing. You know what I’m talking about?” Alan outlined an awkward shape with his fingers.
“And his family, they didn’t have much money. But Dad was a salesman then, just like now. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Talking ’em into it.”
“Hey,” I said. I tried to muster up a snappy retort, but the ice cream was freezing my brain.
“Not you, Miss Stoner. You’re a smart cookie. Plus I don’t have to talk you into a thing, you little tramp.”
It was true. I was crazy for sex with him, the way he tossed me around so handily, as if I were still just a girl. I was planning on having sex with him as soon as he had finished his story, and I my ice cream. Calling me a tramp only amped up my arousal. Not a lot of people think to call Ph.D. candidates in biology “tramp,” but we like it just like everyone else. Not “hussy,” though. We hate that.
“So Mom started dating the jeweler’s son, Jonathon Wolfowitz. ‘Great birthday presents,’ she said.”
Alan winked at me. My birthday was two weeks away. He had been hinting at something special for a month.