Good In Bed Part 8

Samantha squinted at me through the haze. "Bruce? I don't get it."

"What if...," I said slowly. "What if I made a mistake?"

She sighed. "Cannie, I listened to you for months talk about how things weren't right, how things weren't getting better, how you knew that taking a break would be the right thing to do in the long run. And even though you were upset right after it happened, I never heard you say that you'd made the wrong decision."

"What if I think something different now?"

"Well, what changed your mind?"

I thought about my answer. The article was part of it. Bruce and I had never talked about my whole weight thing. Maybe if we had... if he had some sense of how I felt, if I had some inkling of how much he understood... maybe things could have been different.

But more than that, I missed talking to him, telling him how my day went, blowing off steam about Gabby's latest salvos, reading him potential leads for my stories, scenes from my screenplays.

"I just miss him," I said lamely.

"Even after what he wrote about you?" asked Sam.

"Maybe it wasn't so bad," I muttered. "I mean, he didn't say that he didn't find me... you know... desirable."

"Of course he found you desirable," Sam said. "You didn't find him desirable. You found him lazy, and immature, and a slob, and you told me not three months ago lying on this very bench that if he left one more used piece of Kleenex in your bed you were going to kill him and leave his body on a New Jersey Transit bus."

I winced. I couldn't remember the line exactly, but it sure sounded like something I'd say.

"And if you called him," Samantha continued, "what would you say?"

"Hi, how are you, planning on humiliating me in print again anytime soon?" I'd actually had a monthlong reprieve. Bruce's October "Good in Bed" had been called "Love and the Glove." Someone- Gabby, I was practically sure- had left a copy on my desk at work the day before, and I'd read it as fast as I could, with my heart in my throat, until I'd determined that there wasn't a word about C. Not this month, at least.

Real men wear condoms, was his first line. Which was a hoot, considering that during our three years together Bruce had been almost completely spared the indignities of latex. We'd both tested clean, and I went on the pill after a handful of dismaying times when his erection would wilt the instant I produced the Trojans. That minor detail was, of course, notably absent from the story, along with the fact that I'd wound up putting the thing on him- an act that left me feeling like an overprotective mother tying her little boy's shoes. Donning the glove is more than a mere duty, he'd lectured Moxie's readers. It's a sign of devotion, of maturity, a sign of respect for all womankind- and a sign of his love for you.

Now, the memory of the way he'd really been regarding condoms seemed too tender to even consider. And the thought of Bruce and I in bed together made me cringe, because of the thought that came dashing in on its heels: We'll never be like that again.

"Don't call him," said Sam. "I know it feels awful right now, but you'll get through it. You'll survive."

"Thank you, Gloria Gaynor," I grumbled, and went to take a shower.

When I got home, my answering machine was blinking. I hit "play" and heard Steve. "Remember me? The guy in the park? Listen, I was just wondering if you'd like to get that beer this week or maybe dinner. Give me a call."

I smiled as I walked Nifkin, grinned when I cooked myself a chicken breast and a sweet potato and spinach for dinner, beamed all through my twenty-minute consultation with Sam on the question of Steve, Cute Guy from the Park. At nine o'clock precisely I dialed his number. He sounded glad to hear from me. He sounded... great, in fact. Funny. Considerate. Interested in what I did. We quickly covered the basics of each other's lives: ages, colleges, oh-did-you-know-Janie-from-my-high-school, a little bit about parents and family (I left out the whole lesbian mother thing, in order to have something to talk about in the event of a second date), and a little bit about why-we're-single-right-now (I gave the two-sentence synopsis of the Bruce denouement. He told me he'd had a girlfriend back in Atlanta, but she'd gone to nursing school and he'd moved here). I told him about covering the Pillsbury bake-off. He told me that he'd taken up kayaking. We decided to meet for dinner on Sat.u.r.day night at the Latest Dish and maybe catch a movie after that.

"So maybe this will be okay," I told Nifkin, who didn't seem to care much, one way or the other. He turned three times and settled himself on a pillow. I put on my nightgown, trying to avoid glimpses of my body in the bathroom mirror, and went to sleep feeling cautiously optimistic that there was at least a chance that I wouldn't die alone.

Samantha and I had long since identified Azafran as our designated first date restaurant. It had all the advantages: It was right around the corner from her house and my apartment. The food was good, it wasn't too expensive, it was BYOB, which gave us the chance to a) impress the guy by bringing a good bottle of wine, and b) eliminate the possibility of the guy getting blotto, because there'd be nothing more than the single bottle. And, best of all, Azafran had floor-to-ceiling windows, and waitresses who worked out at our gym, who knew us, and who would obligingly seat us at the window tables- our backs to the street, with the guy facing forward- so that whichever one of us didn't have the date could stroll by with Nifkin and scope out the prospect.

I was congratulating myself, because Steve looked eminently scop-able. Short-sleeved polo shirt, neat khakis that looked as though he might actually have ironed them, and a pleasant whiff of cologne. A nice change from Bruce, who was given to stained T-shirts and droopy shorts and who could, absent frequent reminders on my part, be somewhat haphazard in his deodorant use.

I smiled at Steve. He smiled back. Our fingers brushed over the calamari. The wine was delicious, perfectly chilled, and it was a perfect night, with a clear, starry sky and just a hint of fall in the wind.

"So what did you do today?" he asked me.

"Went for a bike ride, up to Chestnut Hill," I said. "Thought about you..."

Something flickered across his face then. Something bad.

"Look," he said quietly. "I ought to tell you something. When I asked if you wanted to have a beer with me... well, I told you I was new to the neighborhood... I mean, I was really just looking for... you know. For friends. For people to hang out with."

The calamari turned into a lead ball in my stomach. "Oh."

"And I guess I didn't make that clear enough... that, I mean that this isn't a date or anything... oh, G.o.d," he said. "Don't look at me like that."

Don't cry, I told myself. Don't cry don't cry don't cry. How had I misread this so badly? I was pathetic. A walking joke. I wanted Bruce back. h.e.l.l, I wanted my mother. Don't cry don't cry don't cry.

"Your eyes," he said softly. "Your eyes are killing me."

"I'm sorry," I said dumbly. Apologizing as always. This cannot get any worse, I thought. Steve stared over my head, out the window.

"Hey," he said, "isn't that your dog?"

I turned, and, sure enough, there was Samantha, and Nifkin, both peering through the window. Sam looked impressed. As I stared, she flashed me a quick thumbs-up.

"Will you excuse me?" I murmured. I stood up, forcing my feet to move. In the ladies' room I splashed cold water on my face, concentrating on not breathing, feeling the tears I couldn't cry ma.s.s behind my forehead and instantly transform themselves into a headache. I considered the night ahead: dinner, then we were supposed to go see the latest world-ending disaster flick at the multiplex. But I couldn't. I couldn't spend the whole night sitting next to a guy who'd just declared himself an un-date. And maybe that made me too sensitive, or ridiculous, but the truth was, I couldn't do it.

I went to the kitchen and found our waitress.

"Almost ready," she said, then looked at my face. "Oh, G.o.d... what? He's gay. He's an escaped convict. He used to date your mother."

"Along those lines," I said.

"Want me to tell him you're sick?"

"Yeah," I said, then thought again. "No. Tell you what... pack up the food, and don't tell him anything. Let's see how long he sits there."

She rolled her eyes. "That bad?"

"There's another way out of here, right?"

She pointed to the fire exit, which was propped open by a chair containing a busboy on a break. "Go for it," she said, and a minute later, clutching two to-go containers and what remained of my pride, I slunk past the busboy and out into the night. My head was pounding. Fool, I thought fiercely. Idiot. Stupid, stupid idiot to think that somebody who looks like that would be interested in someone who looks like you.

I got upstairs, dumped the food, took off my dress, pulled on my ratty overalls, thinking furiously that I probably looked like Andrea Dworkin. I stomped down the stairs, out the door, and started walking, first down to the river, then north, toward Society Hill and Old City, and finally, west toward Rittenhouse Square.

Part of me- the reasonable part- was thinking that this was not a big thing, just a minor b.u.mp on life's bicycle path, and that he was the idiot, not me. The single guy, he'd said. Was I wrong to think that he was asking me out on a bona fide date? And so what if this wasn't a date after all? I'd had dates before. I'd even had boyfriends. It was completely reasonable to think that I'd have them both again, and this guy wasn't worth another second of my time.

But another part- the shrill, hysterical, hypercritical, and, unfortunately, much louder part- was saying something else entirely.

That I was dumb. That I was fat. That I was so fat that n.o.body would ever love me again and so dense that I couldn't see it. That I'd been a fool, or, worse, been made a fool of. That Steve, the Teva-wearing engineer, was probably sitting at an empty table, eating calamari and laughing to himself about big, dumb Cannie.

And who was I going to tell? Who could comfort me?

Not my mother. I couldn't really talk to her about my love life after I'd made it so clear that I didn't approve of hers. And plus, with Bruce's column, she'd learned enough about my after-dark activities for the time being.

I could tell Samantha, certainly, but she'd think I was crazy. "Why are you a.s.suming this is about the way you look?" she'd demand, and I'd mutter that it could probably have been about something else, or just a plain old misunderstanding, all the while feeling the truth in my bones, the Gospel according to my father: I was fat and I was ugly and n.o.body would ever love me. And it would be embarra.s.sing. I wanted my friends to think of me as someone who was smart and funny and capable. I didn't want them to feel sorry for me.

What I wanted to do was call Bruce. I wouldn't tell him about this latest humiliation- I didn't want his pity, either, or for him to think I'd come crawling back, or was planning to, simply because some fuzzy-legged jerk had rejected me- but I wanted to hear his voice. No matter what he'd said in Moxie, no matter how he'd shamed me. After three years, he knew me better than probably anyone else in the world, except Samantha, and at that moment, standing on the sidewalk on 17th and Walnut, I wanted to talk to him so badly that I got weak in the knees.

I hurried home and heaved myself up the stairs two at a time. Sweaty, hands shaking, I sprawled on the bed and reached for the phone, punching in his number as fast as I could. He picked up instantly.

"Hey, Bruce," I began.

"Cannie?" His voice sounded strange. "I was just going to call you."

"Really?" I felt a small spark of hopefulness flare in my chest.

"I just wanted to let you know," he began, and his voice dissolved into harsh, ragged sobs. "My father died this morning."

I don't remember what I said then. I remember that he told me the details: He'd had a stroke and he'd died in the hospital. It had been very fast.

I was crying, Bruce was crying. I couldn't remember when I'd felt so horrible about something. It was so unfair. Bruce's father was a wonderful man. He had loved his family. He had even, I thought, maybe loved me, too.

But even as I was feeling horrible, I felt the spark growing. He'll get it now, a voice in my head whispered. Once you've had a loss like that, doesn't it change the way you see the world? And wouldn't it change the way he saw me, my own fractured family, my own lost father? Plus, he'd need me. He'd needed me once before, to rescue him from loneliness, from s.e.xual ignorance and shame... and surely he would need me again to help him get through this.

I imagined us at the funeral, and how I'd hold his hand, how I'd help him, hold him up, be there for him to lean on, the way I wished I could have leaned on him. I imagined him looking at me with new respect and understanding, new consideration, with the eyes of a man, not a boy.

"Let me help. How can I help?" I said. "Do you want me to come over?"

His reply was dismayingly instant. "No," he said. "I'm going home, and there's a ton of people there now. It would be weird. Could you come to the funeral tomorrow?"

"Of course," I said. "Of course. I love you," I said, the words out of my mouth almost before I'd finished thinking them.

"What does that mean?" he asked me, still crying.

To my credit, I recovered fast. "That I want to be there for you... and help you any way I can."

"Just come tomorrow," he said dully. "That's all you can do right now."

But something perverse in me persisted.

"I love you," I said again, and left the words hanging there. Bruce sighed, knowing what I wanted, and unwilling, or unable, to give it to me.

"I have to go," he said. "I'm sorry, Cannie."

PART TWO.

Reconsider Me

FIVE.

Thinking back, there was probably some way I could have felt worse at Bernard Guberman's funeral. Like if I'd killed him myself.

The service started at two o'clock. I got there early, but the parking lot was already full, with cars backed down the driveway, spilling onto the highway. I finally parked across the street, dashed across four lanes of traffic and straight into a cl.u.s.ter of Bruce's friends. They were standing in the vestibule, in what were surely their interview suits, hands in their pockets, talking quietly and looking at their feet. It was a brilliantly sunny fall afternoon- a day to look at leaves, to buy apple cider and build the first fire of the year. Not a day for this.

"Hey, Cannie," George said softly.

"How's he doing?" I asked.

George shrugged. "He's inside," he said.

Bruce was sitting in a little vestibule, holding a bottle of Evian water and a handkerchief in his right hand. He was wearing the same blue suit he'd worn on Yom Kippur, when we'd sat side by side in temple. It was still too tight, the tie still too short, and he was wearing canvas sneakers that he'd decorated with drawings of stars and swirls during some particularly boring lecture. The second I saw him it was as if our recent history fell away- my decision to ask for a break, his decision to describe my body in print. It was as if nothing was left but our connection- and his pain. His mother stood above him with one hand on his shoulder. There were people everywhere. Everyone was crying.

I went over to Bruce, knelt down, and hugged him.

"Thank you for coming," he said, coolly. Formally. I kissed his cheek, scratchy with what looked like three days' growth of beard. He didn't appear to notice. The hug his mother gave me was warmer, her words a marked contrast to his. "Cannie," she whispered. "I'm glad you're here."

I knew it was going to be bad. I knew I'd feel terrible, being there, even after our parking-lot breakup, even though, of course, there was no earthly way I could have known that this would happen.

But it wasn't just bad. It was agony. Agony when the rabbi, whom I'd seen at Bruce's house at dinner a few times, talked about how Bernard Leonard Guberman had lived for his wife and his son. About how he'd take Audrey to toy stores, even though they didn't have grandchildren. "Just to be ready," he'd say. Which was when I lost it, knowing that I was the one who was supposed to produce those grandchildren, and how much the kids would have loved him, and how lucky I would have been to have that kind of love in my life.

And I sat there on the hard wooden bench in that funeral parlor, eight rows back from Bruce, who was supposed to have been my husband, thinking how all I wanted was to be beside him, and how I'd never felt farther away.

"He really loved you," Bruce's Aunt Barbara whispered to me as we stood washing our hands outside the house. There were cars double-parked in the cul-de-sac, cars circling the block, so many cars that they'd had to station a policeman outside the cemetery for the burial service. Bruce's father had been active in the temple, and had had a thriving practice as a dermatologist. Judging from the throngs, it looked like every Jew or teenager with a skin condition had shown up to pay their respects.

"He was a wonderful man," I said.

She looked at me curiously. "Was?"

Which was when I realized that she was talking about Bruce, who was still alive.

Barbara wrapped her maroon fingernails around my forearm and dragged me into the immaculate, Downy-scented laundry room.

"I know you and Bruce broke up," she said. "Was it because he didn't propose?"

"No," I said. "I guess... I just felt more and more that maybe we weren't a good fit."

It was as if she hadn't heard.

"Audrey always told me that Bernie said how happy he'd be to have you in the family," she said. "He always said, 'If Cannie wants a ring, she'll have a ring in a minute.' "

Oh, G.o.d. I felt tears starting to build behind my eyes. Again. I'd wept during the service, when Bruce stood on the bimah and talked about how his father taught him to catch a ball and drive, and I'd cried at the cemetery when Audrey sobbed over the open grave and said, over and over, "It isn't fair, isn't fair."

Aunt Barbara handed me a handkerchief.

"Bruce needs you," she whispered, and I nodded, knowing that I couldn't trust my voice. "Go," she said, pushing me into the kitchen. I wiped my eyes and went.