THE REST OF the Wolfowitz story tumbled out later, when I was lying on my back, my head dangling over the edge of the mattress, and Alan was sitting straight up, back against the headboard of my bed, one hand resting on his soft, hairy chest. Alan, he could never leave a story unfinished.
Naomi and Wolfowitz dated steadily up until winter break. Then she went with him and his family back east for a week of skiing and board games by the fireplace. When she returned, they weren’t speaking. Wolfowitz didn’t take her to the Valentine’s Day dance. He went stag instead and she stayed home, missing the first dance ever in her high-school career, which was a very big deal, according to Alan. A week later they were back in love, and then they were on the outs again just two weeks after that. Turns out there was talk that Mrs. Wolfowitz had walked in on something untoward between her son and Naomi while on vacation, and the Wolfowitzes no longer viewed Naomi as potential wife material.
“They were doing it?” I said.
“My aunt Esther got plastered at my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party and told me that when Mrs. Wolfowitz walked in my mom was on her knees,” he said.
“Oy,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
So Walter snuck in there, telling Naomi how she was a princess, a goddess, that if he were her man he would never let her go, not for a stupid fight, not for anything. And then one day in April, after a fresh rain, he walked her home from school. As they leaped over puddles and brushed their heads against the rain-soaked leaves dangling from the trees above, she let him hold her hand proudly.
“For all the world to see,” I said.
“She was a prize, my mother,” mused Alan. “She still is.”
I rolled over and put my head on his chest, turned and faced the ceiling.
“They got married right after high-school graduation. She had me that November.”
I started counting backward, November, October…
“Wait, I’m doing the math,” I said.
“I’ve been doing it all my life,” he said.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Alan gave me a diamond tennis bracelet. I laughed when I saw the Wolfowitz label on the inside of the box. And then I got down on my knees and pretended we were on vacation with his family.
I don’t wear the bracelet much now or really at all, because where am I going to wear it. To work? On the subway? I would say I would pass it on to a daughter someday, only I’m not sure I want to have kids.
That was the problem with me and Alan. Well, that was the first problem with me and Alan. Had we fixed it, there would have been a whole series of problems to solve after that, so we just stuck with the one. He fed me ice cream and fattened me up, then pointed out how my breasts and hips would be perfect for childbearing and nurturing. He turned parts of me into the woman he wanted, but he could never turn all of me into something I wasn’t.
And then I got the job offer in New York, and decisions needed to be made.
What he said was: “You go, I’ll follow.”
What he did was: meet a flight attendant on one of those goddamn golf trips with his family. I saw the wedding announcement, and let’s just say she’s twice the shiksa I’ll ever be.
For a year all I did was eat and eat and listen to him talk. And at the end, I was single again, only this time around, fat.
“WHAT HAPPENED with Wolfowitz?” I said. “Who did he end up with?”
“Who didn’t he end up with?” Alan said. “Turns out my dad was right, Wolfowitz liked to play the field. He’s on his third wife now. They get younger every year.”
“While we just get older,” I said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” he said, and at that moment, I couldn’t figure out how to disagree. Now I have plenty to say, but then? Nothing.
I agreed to go out on the first date with Gareth not because I was attracted to him, but because it had been a while. You know. A while. Also he asked properly, not by e-mail or instant message, but with an old-fashioned phone call. I had been spending too much time on Internet dating sites, which I often fell back on as a stopgap measure. A stopgap between what I can’t exactly tell you, because it certainly wasn’t relationships. Perhaps between winter and spring. Between my thirties and forties. Between birth and death. But to meet someone in person, names exchanged, eyes contacted, and then to receive a formal, nerve-wracking phone call made me feel like I was in high school again. Maybe we would make out, too. Maybe I would give him a hickey. Maybe I would let him get to second base.
He called me on a Tuesday evening, after dinner but before bedtime, asked about my day (long), my job (same as always, which is to say, less complicated than people think and mainly fine), and what I thought about the latest political scandal (I am never surprised). Then he popped the question: Would I join him for dinner on Friday? It could be an early meal if I had other plans, he didn’t mind. He just wanted the opportunity to spend a little time with me, just an hour or two, a fraction of my day to bestow upon his unworthy self.