“Quoi?”
“Whatever,” she says. “Just put one on.”
Philippe reaches for the side of the futon and of course he has a bowlful of condoms or whatever they’re called here, and in a flash his lovely penis-yes, it’s uncircumcised and it’s a thing of beauty-is swathed in latex and it towers above her, pointing every which way in its wonderful excitement, until it finds its way home.
Both of them sigh-deep, long, luxurious sighs.
And then they begin to move together and the song in Riley’s head, the song she’s been humming since childhood, spills out of her, a nursery rhyme, a Russian folk song, something her grandmother taught her mother, something her mother hummed to her while bathing her and dressing her and walking her to school, and while Philippe batters her with his cock, bites her breasts, pulls at her hair, Riley cries. It’s a flood up there, tears spilling down the side of her face, and Philippe washes her face with his tongue, a tongue as wondrous as his penis.
He doesn’t stop. He’s grunting, making some kind of whoo-whoo-whoo sound. His body is hard, his muscles taut, his movements powerful. Riley watches him, amazed-it’s a feat of athleticism, this kind of sex, it’s a descent into darkness, it’s a wild-animal mating ritual.
When he comes, he hoots-a cowboy shout, a rodeo ride, this bucking bronco-and then he collapses on top of her, their bodies slick with each other’s sweat.
So. This is sex.
Every other sex she has experienced in her life had something to do with love, or the search for love, or the end of love. This is just sex.
Her mind floods with words again.
Amazing. For however many minutes that took, Riley had turned off her brain. And now it’s someplace new. She’s thinking about love.
Not love for Philippe-no! How soon till she can shower, dress, and flee! Not love for The Victor-no! Love is lost, she’s sure of that now. Love cannot be found, no matter how hard one looks in all the nooks and crannies of their foolish, over-furnished apartment. Not love for all the old boyfriends who didn’t know how to have sex like this-Franklin and his too-small penis, Luca and his wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am performance, Terry and his doughboy body, Johnny and his stick-it-in-during-the-middle-of-the-night obsession, Jesse and his terror of the female netherlands.
She’s thinking about her love for Paris!
Paris. The city of sex. The city of clandestine affairs. The city of handsome French tutors in pathetic apartments. The city where the pain au chocolat you eat in the morning is only the first erotic taste of the day. The city where you can stop talking long enough to hear the song your mother sang.
Just in time-just as Riley remembers her mother’s phone call this morning-Philippe turns her over, holds her hands spread open on the bed, pushes her legs apart with his knees, and enters her from behind.
We are speaking the same language, she thinks.
And this time the sex is even harder-he bites her shoulder at one point, he pushes so hard inside her that she feels herself opening, breaking up, crumbling, splitting.
When he comes, he falls beside her on the bed.
She puts her hand between her legs and makes herself come. She’s almost there, and he’s not going to do anything about it. He watches, his face full of something like wonder.
When she’s done, she’s crying again. This time the tears are for Vic, the old Vic, the old marriage, the love vanished in thin Parisian air. Riley slides away from Philippe and hobbles to the shower. Sure enough, it’s a pit, a hole, and she doesn’t mind one bit. She washes and cries and washes some more. She hums.
Philippe is sleeping when she comes out. She finds her clothes and gets dressed. A button has torn off her shirt-it gapes open, exposing her baby belly. Who cares? She’s a sexpot.
She leaves, pulling the door closed behind her. She doesn’t want to talk to him. Besides, she doesn’t speak the language.
On the way home Riley sees a couple walking down the street, their pigtailed little girl between them, all of them holding hands. To let Riley pass, the dad drops the girl’s hand, like the child’s game London Bridge Is Falling Down. Riley walks past and then looks behind her-sure enough, the little girl skips ahead, untethered, and the parents walk with a gap between them.
Riley imagines that anything that once held Vic and her together-love, passion, Cole’s hands-has fallen down. She knows that cheating on Vic didn’t kill love. Love was already gasping its last dying breath. Even if Vic has been cheating on her, it’s what he did to fill the space between them.
She race-walks down the street, her heels clattering on the pavement.
Twenty minutes later, she is home. Gabi is taking her nap-with a clean diaper-and Cole is playing checkers with the babysitter’s mom. Riley pays the woman twice what she’d normally pay and bows too many times, backing the woman out the door. Cole wraps his arms around Riley’s leg as if she’s been gone for years.
“Let’s call Nana,” Riley says.
“Nana!” Cole repeats, rapturously. He loves his grandma.
It is early morning in Florida-her mother will be reading the paper in the sunroom overlooking the golf course. It is early afternoon in Paris-Riley and Cole sit in the breakfast nook overlooking the courtyard below. A little girl, the concierge’s granddaughter, stands in the middle of the courtyard, her mouth open in a wide O.
“Open the window,” Riley says. “I think she’s singing.”
Cole climbs over the chair and slides the window open. It squeaks and the girl looks up at them, caught mid-note. She pauses and the sound of tey-tey-tey hangs in the air. In a quick moment, she’s singing again, in a thin, high voice. It’s a beautiful song and she watches them while she sings.
“Mom,” Riley says when her mother answers the phone.
“Don’t start calling me every two minutes, Miss Worry-wart,” her mom says.
“I just want to talk to you,” Riley says quietly.
“Is my favorite little man there?”
“Cole,” Riley says, handing him the phone. “She wants you.”
“Nana?” Cole says.
He listens, but he never once takes his eyes off the girl in the courtyard below. He has his grandmother’s voice in one ear and a child’s song in the other ear. His smile spreads across his face.
“I love you, too,” he says, probably to both of them.
He hands Riley the phone.
“I’m fine,” her mother says right away. “I’ll have the surgery, they’ll take it out.”
“Chemo,” Riley says. That’s all she can say.
“So I’ll do chemo. I won’t be the first person in the world.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“He says we should all be so tough at sixty-four years old. He says what I already know. I’m a fighter.”
“How come you didn’t give any of that fight to me?”
“You got plenty of fight. Who else goes to live on the other side of the world with two babies?”
Riley looks around the kitchen-it’s all white, as if aliens or nuns live here.
“You’re the only one I ever talk to.”
“You don’t talk to your husband?”
“No, Ma. Not much.”
“He’s never there. Who takes his bride to the other side of the world and leaves her all alone?”
“Vic.”
“Oh, baby.”
Luckily Cole is staring out the window so he doesn’t see the tears pouring down Riley’s face.
“I’m coming home,” Riley says.
“No. Stay where you are and fix your problems. You have two babies. You can’t just go gallivanting across the world every time you have a little fight with your husband.”