A New Kind of Bliss (10 page)

Aaron spared me from having to answer. “Now, considering Emily has lived in Indianapolis for the past twenty years, that would be an awful long way to travel for the weekend, wouldn’t it?”

“I knew that. I just thought she might have friends who summer here.”

What she actually thought, and what she wanted to hear me say, was that I
didn’t
have friends with summerhouses in the Hamptons. “First of all, Mrs. Wilson, please call me Emily. And in answer to your question, no, I believe the people I know spend the summer on the Vineyard, or at least they used to.”

I loved it when she was caught off guard, and she clearly hadn’t expected to hear me say that. The look on her face was priceless.

“I
see,
” she said, resorting to her old standby.

“I know Tanis has a place up there,” Aaron added.

Having Tanis’s name come up had to be my punishment for feeling so smug about besting Beverline. “Yes, she does,” I said. Naturally Mavis had told Mom when Tanis and Rob had bought a summer home.

“Emily, do you know Tanis Montgomery?” Beverline asked, her voice pitched a little higher than usual.

“All my life. She and I went to school together.” I added pointedly, “In Euliss.”

“Oh, is she from Euliss? Somehow I thought she was from New Rochelle.”

“She was born and raised in Euliss,” I said, almost crankily. “Her mother and mine have played cards every week for as long as I can remember. Some people like to hide where they’re from if their hometowns are a little on the shabby side.” I paused for effect. “As if a person is automatically grungy just because he or she comes from a grungy place. That makes as much sense as always voting for a white male, regardless of his politics.”

Beverline shrugged. “It hardly matters. Tanis is just an actress, and a not terribly successful one at that. She’s hardly of the caliber of Ruby Dee,” she said, naming one of New Rochelle’s more famous residents. “It’s probably just as well that she goes up to the Cape. She probably wouldn’t fit in well here. Businesspeople find more acceptance in the Hamptons.”

I didn’t bother to hide my contempt for that way of thinking. “Having an MBA or a PhD doesn’t make one person better than anyone else.”

“That’s technically true, Emily, but people’s attitudes aren’t necessarily fair and equitable. Sometimes they feel that certain people just aren’t in the same class as they are.” She turned to Aaron. “Like those friends of yours. What are their names again?”

“Ballard. Thais and Lucien Ballard. You’ll meet them later tomorrow, Emily. They’re having a barbecue, and I told them we’d be by.”

“Ah, yes,” Beverline said with a nod. “That soap opera actress and her husband, the gardener.”

Aaron’s features hardened. “Soap opera work is perfectly respectable, and so is gardening, but it so happens that Lucien Ballard is not a gardener. His family owns the service that did my landscaping, and that of a whole lot of our neighbors. They’ve lived here for generations. You’re starting to sound like a real snob, Beverline, and you and I both know you haven’t a leg to stand on when it comes to that.”

He sounded really angry. I’d never seen this side of him before. And what was that about Beverline not having a leg to stand on?

“That was uncalled for, Aaron,” she said, trying her best to sound dignified as she stood. “It isn’t right for you to speak to me this way…especially in front of a stranger.”

I lowered my chin to my chest.
I might be a stranger to you, but your son-in-law and I know each other
real
well.

Beverline was opening the front door to the house when Aaron spoke to me. “Come on, Emily, let’s see if we can find the kids.”

I obediently got up and walked down the driveway with him to the street. “Are you okay?” I asked. “It seems like your mother-in-law kind of got to you there.”

“Sometimes she really pisses me off. Putting on all those airs, and baiting you the way she does. Don’t think I don’t plan to speak to her about it.”

“I can just imagine her reaction when you told her you were bringing me with you for the weekend,” I said grimly.

“She didn’t like it much. Kept telling me I could do better than ‘a Euliss girl.’” He blew out his breath loudly. “Sometimes I think she forgets
I
come from Riverhead.”

“I wonder if she would act the same if you brought home a nice woman doctor from White Plains, rather than a P.A. from Euliss.”

“That might have something to do with it, but I also think she feels a little threatened. She sold her house and got rid of her furniture. She plans on living with me and the kids for the rest of her life, and she’s having a wonderful time acting like she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, both in New Rochelle and out here.”

“Wasn’t she?”
She certainly acts like it.

“Hell, no. She’s from Camden, New Jersey.” He chuckled. “Of course, the so-called friends she’s made would drop her like a hot rock if they knew she came from a city officially ranked as one of the most dangerous in America.”

I knew next to nothing about New Jersey. “Really? Is it that bad?”

“Unfortunately, crime stems from poverty, and many of the people there are poor. The Wilsons were more like lower middle class. Beverline worked as an admissions clerk, and Mr. Wilson worked on the docks. They owned their own home, but I wouldn’t have paid twenty grand for the house and everything in it. He had already died of a heart attack when she moved in with us after Diana got sick. She actually wanted to come way before that, but Diana said no.

“I’d hoped she’d go back home after Diana passed. I’d already spoken to my mother about coming to stay with us to help with the kids. We were ready to put her condo up for sale. But then Beverline started bawling, saying that my mother has a son and grandchildren in Delaware, but that she just lost her only child and wanted to be close to her grandchildren.”

I began to soften toward Aaron’s mother-in-law. “Well, that’s understandable.”

“I thought so at the time. What she neglected to tell me was that she’d already sold her house and donated her furniture to charity. She had no intention of returning to Camden.”

“Oh, that’s sneaky, Aaron.”

“I know. The funny thing is, I would have had no problem if she’d asked me outright if she could stay. But going behind my back like that…” He shook his head. “I was tempted to throw her out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I let her stay, for Diana’s sake, as well as for that of my kids.”

“And now you’re stuck with her.”

“Probably for the rest of her life. And I have to listen as she tells everyone she’s from Philly and looks down on people who don’t have the things she didn’t have herself until she came to live with me.”

“Like she looks down on me,” I said flatly.

“Exactly. And my friends. Lucien Ballard is a great guy. I knew him slightly in high school. We both played basketball, me for Riverhead and him for Westhampton Beach. I ran into him at a party there my buddy Zack took me to last year.” He chuckled. “Naturally, Beverline hates for me to have contact with anyone from my days in Riverhead.”

“Do you ever go back there?”

“Every now and then, like to bring the kids to the water park. But I don’t look up people I used to know, if that’s what you mean. It’s been a very long time since I lived there, Emily. Sometimes I feel a little funny spending my summers just a short distance away from my hometown like I’ve never been there in my life. But there’s nothing for me in Riverhead anymore.”

“Sometimes you just outgrow a place. I know I’d never go to Euliss if my par—if my mother didn’t still live there. You’ve worked hard to get where you are, Aaron. You should never let anyone make you feel guilty about it.”

He grunted. “Maybe I’ve got the same hang-up as Beverline except mine is in reverse. Sometimes I like to hide my success. But my esteemed mother-in-law likes to forget that just a few years ago she was living in a crummy house in Camden, New Jersey, and that’s not right.”

I took his arm. “Don’t let her ruin your holiday, Aaron.” Even as I tried to soothe him, I couldn’t help thinking of the irony. The woman who turned up her nose at me for being from Euliss was just as working class as my parents were.

I knew that information would come in handy eventually.

W
e found the kids, but I’m not sure it was such a good thing.

Billy Merritt had been happy to see me, but Kirsten and Arden stopped just short of giving me what’s known as the cold shoulder. They clearly felt as threatened by me as their grandmother, seeing me as some monster who was slowly moving in on their father and who planned on erasing every reminder of their mother. I’d thought things would be different once they all had a chance to accept the idea of Aaron dating again. Did they really think it would never happen?

That afternoon we went to a barbecue at someone’s home, another shingled cottage with a pool out back. Our hosts, married dentists, had the event catered, and the meats were prepared on a grill by two black men wearing immaculate white aprons and tall white chef hats. Waiters passed a variety of blended drinks around, and a tended bar was set up in a corner of the yard. They even had live music. Being around all these well-off black folks made me feel like I’d died and fallen into an episode of the old
Cosby Show.

Unfortunately, my bliss didn’t last long. I soon became uncomfortably aware of being the focal point of everyone’s interest. Small groups of people talked among themselves with less than discreet glances in my direction and even some pointing fingers, proving that money doesn’t buy class.

Aaron tried to shield me from the gossip, but a person would have to be missing a couple of senses not to recognize what was going on. In addition to Beverline sitting with some of her contemporaries, whose glances my way told me I was the subject of their conversation, a number of women in their thirties showed up, their hair, skin, and make-up looking like they were fresh from the beautician’s chair, dressed in sexy outfits that showed lots of skin, every one of them approaching Aaron for a few friendly words and perhaps an invitation or two. It was like it was open season on the handsome widower, and every single woman wanted him.

Aaron was gracious, but he quickly introduced me by only my name and not adding any type of description, like that old reliable one “my friend.” I could see the blend of surprise and curiosity in those women’s eyes. One woman actually asked, “Are you staying nearby, Emily?” to which Aaron and I exchanged amused glances and I explained, “I’m Aaron’s house guest.” Smiles promptly lost their luster like hair on a day with 90 percent humidity.

Despite my feelings of triumph at having succeeded where so many others had failed, I didn’t enjoy my time on Long Island. I was elated when Aaron walked me around to the front—under dozens of watchful eyes—and said, “I’m afraid this hasn’t been a pleasant experience for you, Emily. Do you think we should go back to Westchester?”

I’d been trying to put on a brave face, but at his suggestion I crumpled, falling against his chest. “Oh, Aaron, how did you know?” In the relatively brief time we’d been seeing each other, Aaron already recognized my needs…and he responded to them.

He held me close. “I’m not blind, Emily. You’re getting it from all sides. I’m so sorry. Tell you what—a friend of mine lives on the North Shore and had invited me to stop by. We’ll head toward the city, hang out there until the traffic dies down, and then we’ll spend the rest of the weekend at my place.”

“Didn’t you promise your friends in Westhampton you’d come over?”

“They’ll understand. They can meet you another time.”

I still felt badly about him cutting his weekend short. “Your kids will be disappointed to see you leave so soon.”

He nodded. “But only Billy had nothing to do with our leaving so early. I know what a pain Beverline can be, but I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in my daughters, Emily.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could point out that his family’s dislike of me would make it difficult for us, but I certainly didn’t want to sound as if I was giving him an ultimatum, something like,
Fix your family’s attitude…or else!
I settled for murmuring, “It’s an unfortunate situation.”

It took about an hour to drive to his friend’s house in Sound-view. Dr. Elias Ansara lived in a quaint two-story home two blocks from the beach. The house, about seventy years old and completely modernized, was small, but charming.

Elias was very charismatic, and he had the looks for it. He was taller than Aaron, with a cleft in his chin, chiseled features, and dark curly hair. I put his age in the midforties. His two adolescent sons were present, both handsome, with light brown hair. Although Elias’s blond companion had the right coloring to be their mother, her young age, maybe thirty or even younger, pretty much ruled that out.

We settled around the oblong table for six on the patio with our plastic dinner plates and matching glasses. “Elias, what’s your specialty?” I asked, curious about this handsome doctor.

“G.I.”

“Emily’s a P.A.,” Aaron offered.

“I always think it’s good when health-care professionals get with other health-care professionals,” Melissa, Elias’s girlfriend, said.

“What do you do, Melissa?” I asked.

“I’m a phlebotomist. That means I—”

“I
know
what it means,” I said so testily that everyone at the table looked taken aback. Everyone except Aaron, who looked concerned. Maybe I should have toned down the vehence, but I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with white people who thought I didn’t know a damn thing. Would she have felt it necessary to explain that she draws blood from patients if I’d been white? Hadn’t Aaron just said I was a P.A.?

Melissa shot a “Help me!” look at Elias, who calmly cut his steak and said, “You’re forgetting that Emily isn’t a layperson, darling. She’s a physician assistant.” He smiled my way. “I think Melissa is just accustomed to having to tell people what ‘phlebotomist’ means, darling. No insult intended.”

His calling me “darling”—in a faint accent reminiscent of both his boyhood spent in Syria and his education in London—enamored me, even if he’d directed the same term toward Melissa two seconds earlier. “I didn’t mean to sound so snippy,” I said graciously, directing my words to Elias, not to Melissa, who hadn’t apologized or even agreed with Elias’s explanation. I knew I needed to calm down, but it’d been a bad day. First Beverline resented me out of fear that Aaron was going to move me in and throw her out on the street. Then his daughters acted like they were afraid I was going to erase their mother from Aaron’s memory by coating her portrait with black paint. Then every single woman—not
every
single woman: every
single
woman—in Sag Harbor was whispering about me because I was dating Aaron. And now this heifer thought she had to explain a medical profession to me? Enough already.

“I hope you two plan on staying for the fireworks,” Elias said easily, with his faint accent.

“Yeah, Mr. Aaron, we can see them right here from the backyard,” one of the boys said. I’d picked up that both boys knew Aaron and his family well. I’d heard one of them ask where Billy was, showing visible disappointment when Aaron said he was out in Sag Harbor.

“Oh, I don’t know, Elias,” Aaron replied. “It’s been a long day for us.”

“You can chill out here.” Again Elias turned to me. “I’ve only got two bedrooms, darling, one for me and one for my boys, but my basement is furnished. You and Aaron can always go down there if you’d like to, uh, rest a bit. No one will bother you.”

Instinctively I knew Elias meant if we wanted to fool around. The man radiated sex.

And it was a cinch
his
sex life wasn’t dull.

In the end we left at seven-thirty, after more guests had arrived. Elias was calling all the women “darling.” I wondered if he actually knew any of their names. Not that anyone seemed to mind.

Traffic conditions were favorable, probably because we traveled before people started hitting the road for the nearest fireworks show. It was still light out when we got to Aaron’s.

This was only the third time I’d been to the imposing mansion, but it still impressed me. Aaron had opened up a whole new world to me. I was still a little bit in awe of it all.

The first thing I saw when I stepped inside was Diana’s portrait. It had made me uneasy last night—I’d actually imagined I saw her eyes move and watch Aaron and I ascend the stairs to the bedroom she once shared with him. Tonight it just annoyed me.

“Do you want to lie down?” Aaron asked. Before I could answer he made a suggestion. “I was thinking you could use a little TLC. How about a nice Jacuzzi?”

“That sounds perfect.”

We practically ran up the stairs. Already my mind was going ahead to what would happen afterward. I prayed that tonight the sex would be a little different. I wanted to…well, I couldn’t say I never felt the earth move with him, but I wanted to explode, like those fireworks that would be lighting up over Long Island Sound in just about forty-five minutes.

He disappeared inside the master bath while I stretched out across the bed, remote control in hand, half watching some documentary about street gangs, because in July there’s no fresh network programming.

When Aaron poked his head out and said my bath was ready I eagerly stripped and stuck the ends of my hair into the same coated rubber band at the root of my ponytail so it wouldn’t get wet. Since getting my hair relaxed, I was much more conscious of weather and other conditions that affected my hair. I still scoffed at those women who, when an unexpected summer storm caught them without an umbrella, were willing to wait for twenty minutes for the storm to pass before going out to their cars, and, even worse, the women who pulled out those old-lady plastic rain scarves from their purses, letting the elements mess up their clothes but not their hair.

I entered the bathroom, enjoying Aaron’s lingering glance at me.

“Ooh, you’re naked,” he said lecherously.

“That I am.” I looked around. Instead of turning on the light Aaron had lit about ten fat candles, including one that burned a few inches below a dish of scented vanilla oil, making the room smell heavenly. He’d also brought out a bottle of wine and a glass. “All this for me?” I squealed.

“It was no trouble. Come on, get in.”

I stepped into the sunken, bubble-filled tub, feeling that Cleopatra had nothing on me. As soon as I sat down, Aaron depressed the button that turned on the whirlpool jets, then handed me the filled glass.

“I can’t figure out how you did this,” I said. “You never left the bathroom.”

“Everything’s in the vanity cabinet,” he explained. “I enjoy relaxing in the Jacuzzi myself. Without the bubbles, of course. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes I watch TV.” A small television was positioned on one of those wall mounts. “That’s why there’s only one glass.”

Because he’d never invited anyone into his Jacuzzi before. That was enough to make me forget that the bubble bath and beads I soaked in had belonged to Diana.

“This is wonderful,” I said. The warm water felt wonderfully soothing luxurious. “But what will you do, just sit and watch me? That doesn’t sound like much fun.”

“Actually, I had something else in mind.” He undid the buttons of his polo shirt and pulled it over his head. Within seconds he had stripped naked and had joined me. Only with masterful self-control did I keep from reaching out for his erect penis and feasting on it, but I believe my mouth fell open and I made the motions of doing just that, imagining how it would fill my mouth.

Because I was already in the tub, Aaron could position himself only leaning against me, but the water served to make him almost weightless. The back of his head rested against my left upper collarbone. I felt his hand on my thigh. “You feel good.” His fingers began to move toward my inner thighs like my body was the Yellow Pages.

“Mmmm. Keep that up, and we’ll be making a beeline for the bed and leave a wet mess for your housekeeper to clean up.” I was enjoying this new type of intimacy for us.

“All right.” He returned his hand to my outer thigh and let it rest there. “I’ve got a confession to make, Emily.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“When I told you that you were only the second woman I’d made love to, I wasn’t being quite honest.”

“Go on.”

“When Diana was failing she wasn’t able to make love.”

“That’s understandable.”
The woman had a brain tumor. What did you expect?

“I still found that I had certain…well, needs.”

“So you saw a…” I trailed off, not wanting to say
hooker.

“A call girl. Elias put me in touch with a service.”

“Elias? He doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding women.”

“Sometimes a man just wants release. He doesn’t want to have to wine and dine a woman, or risk having her try to ingratiate herself into his life, especially once she learns he’s an M.D.”

“So you docs like professionals.” Damn, I was learning something every day about how the other half lives.

“Right. It might sound callous, but sometimes you just don’t want an emotional attachment.”

“I understand.”

“I hoped you would. You’re a practical-minded girl, Emily. Anyway…I saw the same girl every time, just to burn off all my sexual energy. I kept doing it for a little while after Diana passed, until even that gave me no relief.” He took my hand and traced invisible circles on my palm. “So while you technically weren’t just the second one, you
are
the second one who counted for anything.”

“Thanks for telling me. Uh…what’d you think of sex with a professional?”

“I think they really earn their money. That girl did things to me that I would never have asked Diana to do.”

A warning shot through me like Robin Hood’s arrow.

“Let me rephrase that. It’s not
what
she did, it’s
how
she did it.”

I wondered if he was talking about different sexual positions or about oral sex. That seemed like an awfully old-fashioned point of view. Maybe lying flat on your back was more ladylike than on all fours with your ass in the air, but that’s why sex is done in private.

“That reminds me. I’ve got a question for you.”

I smiled. “In that case, I’ve got an answer for
you
.”