George had first come across it while trying to clean up the DVR. Sara had left the series on the record list, and over the course of the first six months, they’d amassed fifty hours of episodes. She couldn’t bring herself to watch it anymore and had asked him to delete them all, but George found himself unable to. Instead he began watching them, late at night, alone. He guessed he was sleeping only three or four hours a night, most times. He didn’t see how it was possible to still be alive on so little sleep, but he managed to get through the day, bleary and exhausted, only to get into bed and find himself wide awake. He would lie there in the dark until sound-sleeper Sara was out, and then get up and wash dishes, make himself an Old-Fashioned, reorganize the books and DVDs, water the houseplants, and watch an episode of ¡Vámonos, Muchachos! while drinking a second Old-Fashioned.
Trying to settle his stomach, George chewed some stale crackers he’d found in the hotel kitchenette. His phone was ringing on the counter. A miracle he had drunkenly managed to plug in his charger. Allen’s face appeared on the screen, and George rejected the call. He couldn’t believe Sara had insisted on inviting him. Not only that, but she’d also made Rob bring him to the bachelor party!
It was during that evening, when George had drunkenly done all the things that passed for bonding — playing blackjack together, stopping at Gary’s SuperLiquor to buy enough Pabst to drown a team of oxen — that Allen had asked him point-blank if he’d ever been with a woman other than Sara. (Where was Jacob when you needed someone to throw a little cold water on the situation?) George had been too obliterated by cheap beer and the relentless throb of the synthesizers to lie. Knowing it was all over his face, he shook his head.
“That’s so fifties, yo!” Allen had screamed. “Shit, you’re like my fucking grandparents.”
Like George’s fucking grandparents, too, he supposed, or even like his sleeping-in-separate-bedrooms-for-the-last-twenty-years parents.
Allen didn’t seem likely to drop it. “What if there’s something weird down there, and you don’t even know it because you’ve never seen any other ones?”
George made a face. “I took AP Biology, Allen. I have an Internet connection.” Then he gestured up to the stage at the current dancer, who was bottomless, just as advertised. “I know what a — I know what one’s supposed to look like.”
After briefly clutching his head in his hands, Allen threw an arm around George. “That’s craziness. I mean, I just couldn’t. It’s — evolutionarily counterproductive!”
“Oh, you’re a biologist now?”
“Look. The male of the species is naturally drawn to polyamorous behavior, and the female is structurally inclined toward birthing and child care…”
George didn’t hear much after that, partly because of the bass coming off the stage and partly because he had heard this all before from Allen, who was fond of sharing stories of his conquests, late at night when they were up editing grants, or poring over thousands of data points in the lab, sometimes even in the middle of the day just walking down the halls at the institute. Allen was an aficionado of all the new online dating sites: Match.com, OKCupid, Chemistry.com, ScienceConnect. He even had an app for his phone that let him scroll through the profiles of nearby available women and indicate with a swipe of his finger if he was interested in them, as if he were seated at some sort of sex buffet. Sara said she couldn’t figure what on earth these women saw in him, but according to his locker-room talk, Allen was getting laid left, right, and center.
George suddenly felt a profound desire to know: “Is it really so great sleeping with all these different people?”
Allen paused as if, for an instant, he couldn’t comprehend the question. Then, incredulous, he responded. “Man, it’s awesome. I — George… you’re making me sad. I’m sorry. This is your night, and I’m happy for you and Sara and all but — what a question!”
George stopped listening. Jumping into bed with some woman he’d only just met seemed pleasant in theory but awful in practice. Not just being naked in front of a stranger, not just having his anatomy and performance evaluated by someone whose standards were unknown, not even the awkwardness of what to do with all that you’d used up in one another afterward, but mainly just the idea of being that close to someone he didn’t know crucial things about: Middle name. Best friend’s name in middle school. County of birth. Number of siblings. Feelings about Elvis. Preference for or against nuts in brownies. Ability to ride a bicycle. Major allergies. Burial locations of childhood pets. Most embarrassing moment of adulthood. Approximate number of pairs of shoes owned. Use of contact lenses. Song to be played at their funeral.
George supposed he had always been a monogamist. Even back in kindergarten he had gotten in trouble. A meeting had been called with his mother and Mrs. Remington. Young George had been systematically working his way through the girls in the class, asking them each to marry him under the swing set, with a ring made out of a twisted juice-box straw. And as an adult, now, when he did spot a beautiful stranger, riding home on the T at night, he never fantasized about jumping into the empty conductor’s cab for eleven anonymous minutes in heaven. No, he’d imagine beginning some awkward conversation: she’d drop something, or he’d trip over someone else’s umbrella, and they’d chat amiably for a few stops about something in the news. They’d discover some shared love of something — the fresh berry crème brûlée at Finale, or how the Gardner Museum still left blank spaces on the walls where a half dozen paintings had been stolen in the 1990s, or the six-story fish tank at the New England Aquarium. And then the fantasy would fast-forward. Some weeks or months would go by and, by chance, George would find himself alone one rainy afternoon, walking by Finale, or the Gardner, or the Aquarium. And there she’d be. They’d see each other by accident. Remember. Laugh. Act like old friends. Go to grab a cup of coffee. But this wasn’t the weirdest part of the fantasy. Not in the least.
The weirdest part was that always, he’d imagine that somewhere in those intervening weeks or months, something would have happened to Sara. She’d have left him or been in a terrible accident. It was usually nothing specific, just that she was gone, and he was sad. The whole thing was awful — but it was the only way he could clear his conscience so the fantasy could continue. Even in his wildest dreams, he couldn’t fathom cheating.
George tried to forget all this as he climbed into the hot shower. Fifteen minutes left to go. Shampoo. Conditioner. He couldn’t find his toothbrush, so he used a fingertip to scrub his teeth. He knew Sara would tell him to just throw up. He considered jabbing his finger back a little farther and seeing what happened, but the thought of it was somehow even worse than the thought of his belly remaining full of last night’s post-rehearsal tequila shots. If she’d been there, he would have done it. To show her that, despite his poor decision making the night before, he was now, that morning, 100 percent committed to getting things back on track.
But without her there, he couldn’t manage it. There was so much he couldn’t manage without her. He bent down right there under the stream of water and prayed that he would never have to. Sick unto death, he thanked God that he was going to marry Sara in just a couple of hours. Through the fog in the bathroom, he could see the clock on the wall. Ten minutes left. He closed his eyes, let the hot water run over him, and tried to picture her body — they had been so busy in the lead-up to the wedding that it had been a few weeks since they’d slept together. She’d been working so hard to fit into her dress that he’d begun to almost not recognize her.