Swim, Butterfly Chapter 25
Without the Strings
Late in the morning after our evening tryst with Charlene, Jimmy drums up the energy to make love to me, but slowly, unfurling like a flower, every touch unhurried. Wrapped in the billowy white bedsheets, I make love to Jimmy in the clouds, miles above Earth, above everyone, falling far and long should I roll out. Just as long as I stay up here, I'll be fine; just never, ever step out again.
During the time spent with Jimmy, we sleep late, eat, talk, tour. We ascend the spiral of the Guggenheim, where Jimmy introduces me to the sensual bloom of colors in FrantiΕ‘ek Kupka's
La colorΓ©e
. Later, we admire the Upper West Side's skyline as we walk along the Jackie Onassis Reservoir, joggers huffing and puffing past us.
I enjoy my visit, but also dutifully call home once in a while to check on the kids. They say that they miss me and ask when I'm coming home. Pete doesn't talk to me. Just as well. We're not ready, and as long as the kids are okay, there's nothing to talk about.
Considering my circumstances and abrupt departure the last time I saw Jimmy, I marvel at how well we get along. Sometimes I catch Jimmy looking at me, not with love in his eyes, but as if he's calculating. Not that it makes me apprehensive, but I wonder what's on his mind. Perhaps it's best to let him bring it up, whatever it is, at his own pace--no reason for me to stir the pot here, too. I'm crashing a bachelor pad, so going with the flow seems the best policy.
Instead of talking about what's really on his mind, we talk about adventures growing up, books, places we have yet to visit. He's curious about the coast of Maine. I tell him it's rocky and cold; blue, brown, and beautiful. I froze my toes years ago in Acadia's frigid Atlantic waters after visiting relatives in New Hampshire. I ask him if he still has family in Russia. He says a few; he reminds me of his cousin the visiting professor, teaching at a college in New England. I ask Jimmy if he has any regrets. He says no, well, just one, that he didn't meet me sooner. He asks the same question, and I say yes, many, except three--'Rudy, June, and you'. Well, that's not fair to Pete. I certainly don't regret meeting him; I regret how our relationship turned out.
We cook breakfast, although neither of us likes breakfast. We just don't know what else to do first thing in the morning. He rarely cooks meals at home anyway, and I've done it too often.
Jack Sprat could eat no fat.
We have no common background, and maybe that's why we don't have expectations of each other. I think he's absolutely gorgeous, but I still don't know what he sees in me. Maybe he likes the domestic touch without the strings?
Wilted over the wicker chair during a lull, I sigh and ask, "Jimmy? What the hell am I looking for? What are you looking for? Shouldn't we have found it yet?"
He smiles, "When you've found the question to which there's no answer, then you've passed the test!"
I don't get it, but I like it anyway. I'm afraid that when I know the answer, that's when the hope of a warm wind dies.
***
Late in a morning, Jimmy says he needs groceries. I don't feel like leaving the apartment, still licking my self-inflicted wounds, wondering if the self-inflicted kind ever heal. I'm not even dressed yet, wrapped in a sheet from the bed. He understands I want to stay in, but cocks his head, "You sure you aren't going to jump out the window or anything? I still got something I want to talk to you about." He watches me browse a stack of books.
"Ha, no. That wouldn't solve anything. I'll figure this out. I have no choice, right? Besides, I would never leave Rudy and June."
The cold floor cools the palm of my hand, the finger of my other hand tracing the soft, flaking spines of old paperbacks. I look up at Jim, "You never suggested a book."
"I wasn't sure what I wanted to say to you."
"Oh well, I probably would have read a different meaning into it, anyways."
Jimmy sits down on the floor next to me, cross-legged, tracing figure eights on the floor with his finger. "Different meaning. Yeah. You know, I'm sorry about that lipstick."
"That lipstick from a year ago? The one with your phone number, that started all..."
"No, not because of the phone number. I don't regret that! I don't think you do either. No, it just," he looks at me, his thumb brushes my lip, "it just suggested that you needed some kind of improvement. It was rude. You don't need anything--you're beautiful and perfect as you are."
I take a breath, then shut my mouth. I press the palm of my hand on his warm cheek, prickly with stubble. "Pete's never said anything like that."
"Fool."
I blink back a tear, but I smile as well. Jimmy kisses my hand, then passes his hand around the back of his head, "Time for a shave, before Smooth Jim turns into Prickly Bob."
I snort, "Boy, you got a lotta names." I sit back and look at him. "I wonder what you'd look like with hair."
"Probably look like an old, hairless sugar glider, with dust bunnies stuck to my head."
"Sexy, do you think you'd have a dash of salt-n-pepper, like me?"
He shakes his head. "Nope, I'm not
that
old!"
"Oh, fuck you."
"You already did, free of charge," he kisses me on the cheek, then stands up, "so don't tell me I never gave ya' nothing." He brushes off the backside of his jeans. "I'll be back in thirty. Relax, no cleaning or anything," he smirks, picking up his wallet from the kitchen table and leaving, and leaving me to wonder what else it is he wants to talk about.
***
I lie down on my back. I don't want to get up, but after I hear his footsteps disappear and the cranky elevator open and shut, I feel compelled to sit right by the window. No, not to jump out, as some might hope I would. That chilly breeze wafts across the back of my neck again, and I picture flinging Jimmy's books out the window. Why? Because I've read so few and think I missed something they had to say? Because they live here with Jimmy, and I don't?
I'm losing my mind, picking a fight with books. Or maybe I'm finding it again.
Instead of book-flinging, I gaze out the window at the people nine stories below. I imagine Pete walking down the street, and no particular emotion stirs in me, unless you call deadening an emotion. Then, I picture June and Rudy playing in the tiny park across the street, and feel a pang in my stomach. What was I thinking, marrying and having children because I didn't know what else to do? I created two nice little people I wasn't sure I wanted, but love so much anyway. They deserve better than that. But as much as I love them, I love Jimmy, too. Or at least I'm
in
love with him, and who knows how long that will last? I just want to have my cake and eat it, too.
Speaking of cake, I hear the door unlocking.
"I got some cake," Jimmy reports from the kitchen. He sets the lone grocery bag down on the kitchen table and scuffs his feet along the floor on his way back to me. He runs his hand down the back of my head, "How are you feeling?"
"I'm okay. Just thinking."
