“Do you really want to go there — again?” he asked.
“Christ, schoolboy,” she said, holding up an oven mitt. “I’ve had it with convincing you. Can’t you ever make an honest, decent decision on your own?”
“There it is,” he said, coming up behind her. “You’re always acting. Did you ever think about what it would be like if you weren’t pretending to be in a scene?”
“I don’t do that.”
“You do. All the time.”
She tossed the oven mitt on the counter and, closing the oven door, turned to face him. “You’re right.” She paused, holding his eyes with her stare. “I’m always acting. It’s my defense. Most people have one. I, however, have changed.”
“You’re saying you’ve changed?” Philip said, with playful disbelief.
“Are you saying I haven’t?”
“I don’t know,” Philip said. “Why don’t we find out?” He lifted her hair and began kissing the back of her neck.
“Cut it out,” she said, swatting at him.
“Why?” he asked.
“Okay, don’t cut it out,” she said. “Let’s have sex and get it over with.
Then we can go back to being as we were.”
“I may not want to,” he said warningly.
“You will. You always do.”
She ran into the bedroom ahead of him and took off her shirt. She still had those small rounded breasts that always made him crazy. He stripped down to his boxer shorts and joined her. “Remember when we used to do that thing?” she asked.
“Which thing?”
“You know — that crazy thing where you lie on your back and put your feet up and I go on my stomach and pretend I’m flying.”
“You want to do that thing?”
“Come on,” she said, coaxing him onto his back.
For a moment, she balanced above him, putting her arms out to the sides, and then his legs began to buckle, and she collapsed on top of him, laughing. He was laughing, too, at the sheer silliness of it, realizing he hadn’t laughed like this in a long time. It was so simple. He recalled how they would spend hours and hours together, doing nothing but playing on the bed, making up silly words and games. That was all they’d needed.
She sat up, brushing the hair out of her face. There it was, he thought.
He was falling in love with her again. He pulled her down and rolled on top of her. “I may still love you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say that after we have sex?” she murmured.
“I’m saying it before.” In unison, they slipped off their underpants, and she held his penis as if weighing his hard-on.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she said.
He slipped in, and for the first few seconds, they didn’t move. She sighed, and her head fell back. “Just do it,” she said.
He began moving, going in deeper and deeper, and it was one of those times when they were immediately in sync. She began to orgasm, screaming out freely, and he started to come himself, and when they were finished, fifteen minutes later, they looked at each other in awe. “That was amazing,” he said.
She wriggled out from under him and sat on the edge of the bed, looking back at him. Then she lay back, resting her head on his chest. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have done it.”
“Why?” he asked. “Are you going to run away again?”
He got up and went into the bathroom. “No,” she said, sitting up. She followed him and watched while he peed, crossing her arms. “But what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You want to eat?”
“Yes,” he said gratefully.
“Good. I’ve been dying to tell you about our new director. He doesn’t speak. Only uses hand motions. So I’ve named him Béla Lugosi.”
Philip opened a bottle of Shiraz, and seated himself on the stepstool, watching her while he sipped the wine. Once again, he was overwhelmed by a deep sense of contentment that seemed to make time stand still.
There was only him and her in this kitchen at this moment. He’d always been here, he thought, and he always would be. He made a decision. “I’m going to tell Lola it’s over,” he said.
The ballet didn’t end until after eleven, so Lola and Enid got back to One Fifth close to midnight. Lola was exhausted, but Enid’s energy hadn’t flagged, despite her insistence on leaning on Lola for physical support.
Halfway through the ballet, she’d asked Lola to take charge of her handbag, claiming it was too heavy — the ancient crocodile bag did weigh at least five pounds — and Lola was forced to spend the rest of the evening fishing out Enid’s reading glasses, lipstick, and powder. The third time Enid asked for her compact, Lola had realized Enid was doing it on purpose to try to irritate her. Why else would the old woman be so insistent on continually touching up her makeup?
But then riding down Fifth Avenue in the taxi, they’d come upon the mighty glory of One Fifth, and Lola decided the evening had been worth all the trouble. Reaching the thirteenth floor, Lola found Enid’s keys, opened her door, and handed Enid back her handbag. Enid rewarded her with a kiss on the cheek, something she’d never done.
“Good night, dear,” she said. “I had such a good time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Do we have plans?” Lola asked.
“No. But now that you’re living with Philip, we don’t need plans. I’ll knock on your door. Maybe we can go for a walk.”
Great, Lola thought, going into Philip’s apartment. Tomorrow was going to be about twenty degrees. “Philip?” she called.
When she didn’t get an answer, she went through the apartment, looking for him. Philip wasn’t home. This was perplexing. She called his cell phone and heard it ringing in his office. He’d probably gone to the deli and would be back in a minute. She sat down on the couch, took off her shoes, and kicked them under the coffee table. Then she noticed that her bridal magazines were missing.
She stood up, frowning, and began searching for them. There had been a dress in one of the magazines that was particularly fetching — it was beaded and strapless, with a long train that flowed out when you walked, and pooled elegantly around the feet when you stood still. If she couldn’t find the magazine, she might never find that particular dress, because the bridal magazines didn’t put all their pages on a website, so prospective brides actually had to buy the publication. She looked in the kitchen and then Philip’s office, coming to the conclusion that he had accidentally thrown them out. She would have to scold him for it — he had to learn to respect her things. Going back into the kitchen, she poured the last of a bottle of white wine into a glass, then opened the garbage chute to dispose of the bottle. Philip had repeatedly told her not to put glass down the chute, but she refused to follow his orders. Recycling was such a pain, and besides, it was completely useless. The planet had already been ruined by previous generations.
And lo, stuck in the top of the narrow chute was one of her magazines. She pulled it out and, smacking it on the counter, glared. So Philip had thrown out her magazines on purpose. What did that mean?
Taking the glass of wine into the bathroom, she began running a bath.
She assumed Philip wanted to marry her — why wouldn’t he? — but that it would take some urging to pull it off. What she’d been telling James Gooch about Philip wasn’t true at all. She was perfectly happy to force Philip down the aisle if she had to. Everyone knew that men needed to be marched to the church, but once they were, they were grateful. If necessary, she was even willing to get pregnant. Celebrities were always getting pregnant first and married later, and if she had a baby, it could be dressed up like a little bridesmaid and carried down the aisle in a basket by her mother.