“Oh, can you?”
Oh, can you? It was the sort of line she’d normally cringe at. The sort of coy flirtation that made her hate girls she saw in bars. But here, under the fluorescent lights of the supply closet, she told her better self to shut up; she just went with it. Moaned at all the right times as he kissed her neck; gasped theatrically as he slid a hand up her skirt. Closed her eyes and leaned her head back against a half-furled THINK BRIGHTER poster when he buried his head between her thighs. And when it was over, and she was wiping herself off with Kleenex from a box she’d just opened, she realized, with a sort of lightness, that for the first time in six years she felt good about what had happened. Better than good, even. Happy.
Though maybe not entirely. There is, after all, the issue of the ring, which she spotted the first day she saw him in the sales meeting—a thin gold band, strapped around the fourth finger on his left hand. And there’s what he said last week when they walked down Wilshire to get coffee after her team’s morning meet-up. The quiet implication that things weren’t great at home. She feels badly about that—though, if she’s being honest with herself, probably not as badly as she should, particularly because alongside that guilt is a sense of thrilling excitement. Still, she knows she’s crossed a line in the sand of Womanhood—a boundary that has been delineated by feminism and sorority and, God, probably a bunch of spear-wielding, breast-heaving Amazonians. She’s turned her back on her sex, has somehow thrown a bone (ha ha) to the very patriarchy that she half-drunkenly bitches about every Friday night. She should be atoning somehow, she thinks. Call his wife (Marissa), come clean, and swear off men. Really, though, every time it happens all she wants is for it to happen again.
“You ready?”
They’ve finished the wine. Jonathan has finished talking. He’s paid the bill. All without her noticing.
Alice smiles. “Yup.”
Jonathan hates Wilshire—even though Think Big has its offices there, he calls the boulevard soulless and corporate—so he takes South Wilton to Beverley Boulevard, then heads west, toward Westwood and Alice’s apartment. It’s after ten, so there isn’t much traffic, and as Jonathan smoothly works through the Alfa Romeo’s gears the car gains speed and begins to purr. Alice rests her head against the window as they drive through Fairfax, and as they pass the cross streets she counts them and says their names silently to herself: Poinsettia. Martel. Crescent Heights. Each one stretches out toward the hills, where the glinting light of mansions replaces the need for stars.
“You want to talk about it some more?” Jonathan says.
“What?”
“Your brother not calling your mom. Your half sister’s wedding.”
They’ve crossed into West Hollywood. On Robertson, a line of men snakes around the entrance to a bar. Above them, clouds of cigarette smoke unfurl themselves like balls of string.
“There’s not much to talk about. Paul doesn’t want to talk to Mom, and he thinks Eloise is a spoiled bitch.”
In front of them, a stoplight turns yellow and Jonathan speeds up.
“And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Think she’s a spoiled bitch?”
“Of course,” Alice says. “That’s what she is.”
She reaches for the radio and tunes it to a Top 40 station. A song that she’s never heard is playing, and she turns it up.
Alice turns in her seat and looks at him for a moment, at the way the dull glow from the streetlamps washes the wrinkles out of his forehead and smooths away the creases at the corners of his mouth. They stop at a red light, and she pulls one knee up to her chest.
“You want to come up for a drink?” she asks him.
“Huh?”
“When we get back to my place,” she says, hugging her knee closer. “Want to come up for a drink?”
He scratches his widow’s peak and turns back toward the road.
“Oof,” he says. “I wish I could. God, I wish I could. I can’t, though. It’s already late. And Marissa … if she has to put the kids to bed by herself again…”
“Right.” Alice puts both feet squarely on the floorboard in front of her. She reaches forward to change the radio station. “No, I know. You’re right. It’s late.”
Jonathan reaches over and squeezes the back of her neck.
“Next time,” he says.
The light turns green.
Donna
May 3
“Ma’am? Can I help you?”
Donna looks at the crook of her left arm, where she’s slung five or six dresses. “Oh, thank you, but I’m sure I’ll manage,” she says.
The salesgirl smiles. KIM, her name tag reads. She’s dressed all in black—everyone in the department store is dressed all in black, Donna’s noticed—and she can’t be older than nineteen or twenty. She wears heavy eye shadow and she’s straightened her dark hair so it falls in solid curtains on either side of her face. A piano rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” twinkles throughout the store. The air’s fragrant with synthetic rosewater and sandalwood.
“At least let me start a dressing room for you?”
Kim’s smile widens, and she reaches for the nest of dresses, all tangled up in their individual hangers.
“I … uh, I…” Donna stammers.
Kim works on commission; there’s no stopping her.
“That would be nice,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Let me show you where I’ll be setting you up.”
Donna follows her, watching her thin waist sway in her black pants as they slither past racks of expensive blouses and khaki trousers. Near a table stacked with neat piles of V-neck sweaters, she catches her reflection in the mirror. She’s all hips. And not good hips. Not Kim hips. But hip hips, the kind that can’t be controlled with a pair of stretchy black pants. She can’t remember when that happened—when she suddenly exploded horizontally. Hair has escaped from behind her ear and now hangs in front of her eyes: a mess of brown and dyed russet and scraggly gray roots. She’ll need to schedule a coloring appointment before she leaves for London. From the looks of it, she’ll have to schedule a lot of appointments before she leaves for London.
“Here we are,” Kim says, unlocking the door to a small dressing room with a bench and a full-length mirror. A handful of clothing pins dot the carpet like pine needles. Kim crouches down to gather them up, and as she does so, the hem of her shirt lifts an inch, revealing the elastic band of her thong and a small tattoo. A rose in half bloom. Donna looks away, casting her eyes down to her cell phone—her new cell phone—which she’s got cradled like a relic in her right hand.
“Expecting a call?” Kim asks. She slips the pins into her pocket.