“I think you are.” He is, at least, a work of art, his inky black hair, his skin a parade of vivid imagery, his muscles as sculpted and perfected as a masterpiece. I may have called him a mechanic our first night together, but his garage
is clearly important to him, and if he treats cars like anything else he loves, I’d bet he brings a certain artistry to his craft.
“What about your dad?” he asks.
“My dad doesn’t care for Reggie. Thinks he’s slimy.”
Andrew sighs deeply. “Dad knows best, young lady. You should always listen to your father.”
I smile. “He didn’t tell me until after Reggie and I were done. I guess my mom made him bite his tongue. He’s not without his disappointment, though. Education is his thing. I was supposed to go into business.”
“You are in business.”
I put on my best dad voice. “‘Fashion is frivolous’ is what he always says. At least I went to college, so I haven’t totally let him down.”
“NYU?”
“Parsons, majoring in fashion marketing. I took a PR internship knowing I wanted to start my own firm as soon as I had the experience under my belt.”
“I always knew I wanted to do my own thing too. I’m not cut out for the corporate world.”
“How’d you end up with a garage?”
“My grandpa was huge into cars. My dad is a bum, but not his dad. He worked for a guy who owned a garage, and they taught me everything they knew.”
“Does your grandpa help out with Bell?”
“Never met her, sadly. He died young from a heart attack, but I kept going to the garage. I skipped college to work and save money. When Gramp’s friend was ready to sell the garage, I had enough to make a serious offer.”
I knew Andrew was smart, but I didn’t realize how ambitious he was. I never stopped to ask how he ended up with his own business. I can picture him picking up extra hours while his friends wasted time at college. “I have to admit,” I say, “I find that pretty sexy.”
“A high school-educated mechanic does it for you?”
“You’re doing better than a lot of people.”
“I can’t disagree there. Love my job, and I get to spend every day with Bell. It’s a good life.”
I glance at our tangled legs through the melting bubbles. Dark versus light. I wonder, since Andrew has worked so hard to make the life he wants on his own, if it were even possible for someone to come in and make it any better. That isn’t any way for me to think. I bend my knees and extract myself from his grip.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere. I have a surprise. Close your eyes.”
“What could you possibly give me to make this night any better?” he asks, but when I look back at him, his eyes are shut.
I stand to reach a drawer with a box of cigars my dad left behind during his last visit. I cut one with a guillotine, light it, and put an ashtray on the edge.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks. “Was that a lighter? Should I be worried?”
When I get back in the water, I sit opposite him and nudge his calf with my foot. “Here.”
He opens his eyes and takes the Cuban I’m holding between us. “Seriously?” he asks, rolling it between his fingers. “You’re the fucking best.” I smile proudly as he smells and then puffs on it several times. “Sure you want to waste this on me?” he asks, blowing a cloud of white, silky smoke between us.
“Can you think of a better situation for one?”
“Better than a post-fuck bubble bath? I don’t know if one exists.” He grins. “Why’re you all the way over there?”
“I don’t need you accidentally lighting my hair on fire.”
With his free hand, he lifts my ankle to his mouth and kisses the inside. “It’s nice to be taken care of for once.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I tease. “I suck at putting others first.”
“Are you crazy?” he asks, pulling a face. “I haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t cook. I hire someone else to clean. The fridge is never stocked with your—” I pause before ‘favorite foods’ comes out. I’m airing Reggie’s grievances, things my therapist and I have supposedly worked through.
“That’s your ex talking.”
I shake my head. “It’s all true, though.” I look him in the eye to drive home the point that we’re better off apart. “I don’t do those things. I’m not a homemaker or a housewife. After I found out about the affair, Reggie and I had a few huge fights. It was one of the things he always brought up. I didn’t take care of him the way he needed.”
“Forcing yourself into your husband’s box is not how you take care of him.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on both sides of the tub. “You want to know how to take care of a man?”
I bite my bottom lip at the intensity in his eyes. Whatever he needs, he’s going to tell it to me straight. “Okay.”
“What you just gave me in there,” he points to the bedroom then gestures over the bath, bumping a little ash into the bubbles, “and now this? I feel like a king.”
I look over at the bed, and for a moment, I’m embarrassed. I’m not sure what I expected him to say, maybe something more profound or romantic. “Sex,” I say. “That’s all it takes with you men, isn’t it?”
“No,” he says. “I’m talking about something deeper. You didn’t withhold.”
I don’t really register whatever excuse he just spit out. Sex isn’t enough to sustain a couple. Eventually, it becomes a chore. Not every time, but enough. Of course that’s what Andrew needs from me. Not that I should be surprised—what else have I given him?
“Hey,” he says, calling me back to the moment. “Where are you?”
“I’m here,” I say, drawing my knees to my chest. “We should dry off. The water’s getting cold.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” he says, nabbing my ankle again. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Not nothing. Something. I can tell.”
I sigh. “Really, Andrew. I’m not your girlfriend. You don’t have to do all this with me.”
“Tell me what upset you.”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m not upset. But when you tell me sex is all a man needs to be happy, it doesn’t sit well. I’m still trying to work through my issues with Reggie, so I don’t really think it’s healthy to—”
“Whoa,” he says. “Back up. I didn’t say that’s what I need to be happy. I’m talking about how you trusted me in the bedroom. The other night, in the hotel, when you let me blindfold you? You took care of me by letting me take care of you.”
I shake my head and wave my palms. “Fine. I don’t know. You’re right—let’s drop it.”
“God damn, he did a number on you, didn’t he? What are these issues you mentioned?”
“None, nothing, not a one.” I try to pull my leg back, but he won’t release it.
“If it has to do with sex, I need to know,” he says, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so determined. He’s bordering on angry. “You let yourself be vulnerable with me—that’s a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.”
“Okay, it won’t happen again. Promise. Now, can we please—”
“Amelia.” He levels me with a look. “What is it? He made you feel bad about your body? Is that why you have issues with your diet?”
“It’s more . . . complicated than that. And you and I? We don’t do complicated, Andrew.”
“I’m willing to try. I wish you would too.”
I sigh, looking from side to side, trying to figure a way—physically and conversationally—out of this. In the end, though, he’s right. Andrew is in dangerous territory, and he doesn’t know it and that’s not fair to him. “When you and Shana were together,” I start, “and one of you didn’t want to have sex—say, maybe, she was tired from being up all night with Bell—how did you handle it?”
He looks over my face. “I don’t understand the question.”
“How did you handle it if you wanted sex and Shana didn’t?”
He’s quiet for a few seconds, probably trying to put himself in that position again. Great. I’m trudging up painful memories for
both of us. “I still don’t understand,” he says. “If she didn’t want it, I guess I turned over and fell asleep. Or went to watch TV. Or I went and jerked it in the shower. What are the other options?” His face falls. “I already told you, I never cheated on her. Are you saying Reggie would leave and find it somewhere else?”
“No.” I shift against the back of the tub. Even though the water is cooling down, it seems to be getting warmer. “I mean, eventually he did with Virginia. But a few months before the affair started, we were growing apart. We both worked a lot. I think Reggie felt me slipping away and got more controlling.”
“How?”
“When he wanted sex, he didn’t handle it like . . . a normal person. He would push and push. He’d try to coax or guilt me into it, saying if he’d wanted someone to tell him no, he wouldn’t have bothered getting himself a wife. Basically insinuating that I owed him.”
“You owed him?” Andrew asks, shaking his head in disbelief. “That’s utterly ridiculous.”
“That was when he was sober. When he’d been drinking, he’d call me names, he . . .” These are only things I’ve told my therapist, and hard as it was, hell if it wasn’t a lot easier than laying it out for my new, naked lover who, so far, is too shiny and perfect to hear this kind of thing.
“Keep going,” Andrew says, “otherwise I’ll be forced to fill in the blanks and that won’t be good.”
Part of me wants to include Andrew. As great as Dianne has been at coaching me to get past Reggie’s sexual harassment and emotional abuse, I’ve felt alone a lot of the time, and Andrew—he asks questions. He wants to know. I take a deep breath. “He’d accuse me of getting it somewhere else and call me a whore. Or on the flip side, I was ‘too lazy to even lie there and spread my legs.’ He’d follow me around the apartment, insisting, calling me names. A few times he blacked out and cornered me,” I swallow, glancing around the bathroom, “once in here.”