Life After Yes (3 page)

Thankfully, he was a good sport about the mishap. “Right body part,” he said, pulling the hook out, wiping away the small trickle of blood with his sleeve. “But wrong creature. You sure you're Daddy O'Malley's little girl?”

I smiled. “Maybe that was intentional,” I said, my flirtation skills in high bloom. “Maybe I'd rather snag you than a slimy old trout.”

“Could be,” he said, blue eyes sparkling.

We brought our own picnic—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and lemonade, and Phelps swiped a couple of Bud Lights from his parents' summer stash.

“WASPs don't notice missing booze,” he said.

He pulled out his Swiss Army knife and popped the cap. He handed me the bottle and I protested. He couldn't believe that I wasn't a big beer drinker. I told him we did things a bit differently back in Manhattan. It was true. But he was a Midwesterner through and through, already a big fan of brewski, and eager to convert me.

“I know it's not prudent to drink at such an early age out in the open for all to see, but give it a try,” he said, taking a swig. He peppered as many sentences as he could with this word. Cabins surrounded the lake, lights on. “It's good practice for college. Plus, rebellion can be delicious.”

I looked at him: blond hair, blue eyes, golden skin, blue-and-white plaid flannel over lemon-colored polo, khaki shorts hung low on his waist, untied Nikes; hardly the revolutionary. He would attend Williams that fall.

I copied his movements, holding the amber bottle up at the same forty-five-degree angle and taking a big swallow.

“Delicious,” I said, smiling, lying a bit.

He held his beer in one hand, but with his other, he began carving something with his knife on the side of the boat. Our initials.

“The precocious vandal,” I said, swallowing. The beer really wasn't so bad.

“The
snag-worthy
precocious vandal,” he clarified, “who can outfish you any day.”

He rowed us through the still water to one edge of the lake, a small spot hidden under a canopy of overhanging trees. He handed me his empty and pulled the line through his rod and began casting. The fly arced over us and landed softly in the water. Before long, he caught a rainbow trout and a brown trout, pulled the hooks from their mouths and released them into the water.

“They're too young to die,” he said, wiping blood and water and fish slime onto that flannel shirt.

The bugs started biting and he pulled a tiny bottle of repellent from his khaki vest—his father's old vest—and handed it to me. And when I got cold, he handed me that flannel. It smelled like fish guts, but it kept me warm.

That night as the sky grew dark, Phelps stopped fishing and looked at me.

“What?” I said, uncomfortable, but unable to look away. Anchored by his glance.

He didn't answer me, but grabbed my hand and pulled me close. He peeled off that flannel and started unbuttoning my shirt.

He stopped for a moment and kissed me. His tongue tasted like beer and peanut butter.

I kissed him back.

He slipped his thumb in the waistband of my jeans and I said: “I can't.”

“You don't want this?” he asked, kissing my neck.

“I didn't say that,” I said.

“You're right,” he said, still kissing me. “It probably wouldn't be prudent.”

A girl named Prudence wouldn't do this.

But a girl named Quinn just might.

I kissed him hard and unbuckled his pants. The boat swayed beneath us, the oars slapped the water. Phelps reached for the anchor and dropped it into the water.

He had a condom in his back pocket. Apparently, the boy wasn't completely allergic to prudence.

There was only a little blood, but we flushed it out with water from the lake.

A week later, my body was still covered in the bug bites from that night. It was the night before we left Wisconsin to come back to New York. Phelps and I went out on the same rowboat, this time without rods. He brought his guitar and a cooler full of beer.

Many beers later, back at that same hidden spot, he took his guitar out and played “Dear Prudence.”

Before we fell asleep on the boat, me in that same smelly flannel resting against his skinny golden chest, he pulled a daisy chain from his fishing bag and put it around my neck. Then he said those three words we hear and say so often, too often maybe, once we grow up. He said:
I love you.
And I said it back.

I woke up the next morning and felt different. I couldn't decide whether it was because I had my first hangover or my first love. I decided it was probably both.

Four years later, college under those proverbial belts of ours, Phelps left the Midwest and came to New York for medical school. I began law school. Beds replaced rowboats. Dirty martinis replaced Bud Lights. Roses replaced daisies. He worked long hours. I worked long hours. His guitar gathered dust. That flannel sat folded in the back of my bottom drawer.

 

I turn off the water, re-create my terry bikini, and make my way back to my locker. A woman in a black suit rushes toward me, clicking the tiles with her heels. She looks down at her BlackBerry as she hurries by me. Her elbow catches my towel and it drops to the ground. A faint “Sorry” echoes as she rushes out.

For a brief moment, I'm topless like the others. A woman peers through a mess of frizzy black hair and stares at me, at
them.
I catch her eyes, but they don't retreat.

“Nice ones. Whose are they?” she asks, stepping into a pair of chocolate brown trousers.

“Mine,” I say defensively, just registering what she is asking. She thinks they are fake. Is this a compliment or no? I'm not sure.

Now Kenny G drifts from the ceiling. I put my sweaty clothes back on and slip out the back of the locker room. I slither along the back wall of the gym, ducking behind the machines. I can see Victor across the room laughing with the fat man whose belly dips below the bottom of his JPMorgan T-shirt.

I walk out the front door into the cold January air. People wait on corners, arms outstretched, gloved hands waving lethargically at taxis that don't stop. A fire truck speeds by, a blur of American flags. Two small Korean women shiver
as they unlock the rolling gates to the dry cleaner's. A Heineken truck is parked in front of the corner deli. A cigarette dangles from a man's lips as he unloads cases down a rolling ramp. Dying Christmas trees recline on sidewalks, browning needles littering the damp frozen pavement, waiting to be taken away.

I run home so my leggings and hair won't freeze. I run past the playground on my corner. A father in a bright blue parka pushes his little girl in a pink pom-pom hat on the swing. They both giggle as she flies high in the sky and loses a purple mitten midair, their breath forming clouds that fade into frigid air.

M
anhattan's Upper West Side is the land of chubby babies and skinny mommies. Thanks to waves of panic and fertility drugs, double strollers have taken over, narrowing sidewalks and blocking grocery aisles for the rest of us single units who just want to go about our day.

Well-fed Labs and Goldens run the show, sporting collars with embroidered Nantucket whales and Scottish plaids, trotting proudly on grassless streets, lifting muscled legs to spray electric yellow, claiming patches of concrete as their own. Little dogs in sweaters and booties and bows are yanked by impatient owners with legs unfairly longer, or, more thoughtfully, toted in small bags designed just for their travel. Deliverymen snake through this mayhem, bicycling without helmets and with alarming speed, through and against the video game traffic, causing a symphony of illegal car horns, just to deliver morning bagels and late night pizzas to folks too lazy to walk a block.

I've lived in this world my whole life, and Sage and I have lived here in our apartment for almost a year. Our place is charming and cozy—NYC code for “small”—with rugged walls of exposed brick and black-and-white photographs on the walls; “very New York,” as Sage's mother remarked, and “very Pottery Barn,” as my mother did. Neither, I'm sure you've gathered, was a compliment.

We
love it, though. We even have a working fireplace. Well, I am pretty sure it works anyway. The previous owner left a Duraflame in it, so I'm assuming it works.

Back from the gym, I climb our cracked brownstone stairs, stairs littered today with a medley of soggy delivery menus and abandoned bottle caps. This is what a million gets you in this neck of the woods. I fidget for my keys. Once inside, I hear our neighbor's Labradoodle complaining about something (perhaps about the fact that he is a combination of two breeds that shouldn't mix?). I hike the internal set of stairs that invariably turns furniture deliverymen into madmen who expect outrageous tips. I kick open the door to our apartment and slide through.

Sage prefers the blond and polish of Diane Sawyer, but I guess he figures it wasn't worth the battle. So, Katie Couric sits on the small flat-screen in our kitchen, hyperactively crossing and uncrossing her suspiciously bronzed trademark legs, batting her mascara-caked lashes, and chirping about early menopause, or something equally dreadful. For a few minutes each day, she and the others take a break from covering terrorism, a phenomenon no one really talked about before September.

I trip over Hula Popper, our small gray tabby cat. Sage is a dog man. But I argued that a kitty would be the perfect companion for two overworked young professionals. Sage
stayed strong, holding out for the dog he was convinced we'd one day welcome. After a while, I gave up on the cat thing. But after Dad died, Sage brought home a kitten, a stray he adopted from our local holistic vet. Perhaps he hoped this ball of fur could numb the pain I would someday let myself feel. I told him he could choose the name. For me Prudence/ Quinn, this was no small concession. So he named our little critter Hula Popper after the fishing lure perfect for catching pike and largemouth bass.

Dad would've liked the name.

Sage is here, in the kitchen, only half awake, strikingly, effortlessly, handsome even at this early hour. He putters around, picking up coins and a Popsicle wrapper from the floor by the fridge.

“Hey,” I say, standing in the doorway, shivering.

“Hey, Bug,” he says. I too have the fortune of a fly-fishing nickname. Apparently something in me reminds Sage of the Jitterbug, the Hula Popper's rival among classic topwater plugs. He gave me the lowdown on this breed of bait, telling me that this lure wobbles across the water's surface. Its gurglings, he explained, send out waves. Per my man, the Jitterbug's for fishing at night, in stained water, and on gray days because the steady gurgle helps bass hone in on the bait. Most anglers fish the Jitterbug slow and steady, he told me, neither pausing the bait nor adding any action with twitches or jerks. Sage said this was also a good name for me because I can't dance.

“How was the workout? Why is your hair wet?” he says, and scrubs orange Popsicle juice from his hands.

“Oh, I decided to shower at the gym.”

“Ah, I see. Someone wanted to flash her new ring around overtime,” he says.

“Something like that,” I say, and smile. This morning his
ego must be five carats. “Workout was good, just a bit harsh after Paris. I think champagne is still pumping through my veins.”

I plant a soft kiss on Sage's cheek like I always do and shimmy past him. “What have you been up to?” I ask. Admittedly, it's a stupid question. I've been gone just more than an hour, and judging from the creases on his cheeks he's been in bed until five minutes ago. But I ask it anyway, filling the morning quiet with small talk, a phenomenon I once foolishly thought reserved for acquaintances and uncomfortable strangers.

“Oh, just got up. Just trying to mitigate the damage of this week's tornado,” he says, wiping a small mountain of white powder off the counter with a paper towel decked with faded Christmas bells. In our early days, he never used words like “mitigate”, and I feel a momentary surge of pride. He strokes the counter with great care, as if the white mounds might be some unknown and devastating cousin of anthrax and not artificial sweetener that escaped my coffee cup some morning last week.

“I hate that you use this stuff,” he says.

“I know you do. What breed of cancer am I getting from it this week? Uterine? Or brain?” I say, and smile. Sage regularly shows me articles from magazines and medical journals and I love that he wants to protect me, but still, I shrug and sprinkle away, shunning calories, courting the unknown.

“Beatrice is coming tomorrow. Don't worry about it,” I say, but he keeps cleaning. Beatrice, an aspiring opera singer, deems herself a housekeeper while under our roof.

“Honey, isn't it a bit telling that I feel I have to clean before she comes?” He knows just how much I hate being called honey, so he saves it for special occasions.

Here we are: back to reality. Yes, he whisked me to another continent and slipped that ring on my finger, but that didn't change much. A diamond, however sizable and with fanfare presented, can do only so much.

There
is
one major problem with our place. It has nothing to do with a scarcity of square footage, or with a lack of sunlight, or with an acidic
New York Times
–stealing neighbor. No, the problem is not among those that plague so many of my friends and colleagues who are growing homesick for the space and serenity and sanity of suburban childhoods.

The problem: me. I am a consummate, steadfast, committed slob. My dishes crust over and pile up, forming precarious towers that threaten to tumble and crash. By Friday, my suit jackets and bras blanket our hardwood bedroom floor, creating an obstacle course for the two of us and poor Hula.

Hence, our “need” for “help.” It did take a while, many months and some delicately woven arguments and bouts of self-deprecation, but finally I convinced him, or wore him down, as Sage would have it. The “consensus” (as I like to call all decisions I make that involve both of us): We needed a housekeeper once a week. My man hit me with the obvious: If I cleaned up after myself, a housekeeper would be unnecessary. This argument, however bland and bulletproof, did not stop me. Predictably, I went lawyer on him as I've been known to do, wielding arguments that weren't necessarily as sound as they were dramatic. While shyness overtakes me at the office, I fancy myself a gifted negotiator at home, and in these situations, I argue articulately and adamantly. I told him I led a stressful life at the firm and I refused to spend my “downtime” cleaning house. Certainly, it helped when I fattened my already ample lower lip. And yes, it didn't hurt when I gave him my best sad eyes and delivered some
variation of my trademark apology about not being domestic enough.

Yes, he's a sucker.

My sucker.

Sometimes, he probably wishes he had fallen in love with someone a bit sweeter. Someone more like his mother.

So Beatrice comes once a week and we pay her a hefty one hundred dollars to vacuum cat hair and fold underwear. It's a luxury we can technically afford, but Sage insists we can't justify. But it's one that I, like so many of my breed, have decided—like triweekly sessions with a trainer—is absolutely essential. (Yes, I'm almost as spoiled as I am messy. At least I own it.)

“I have a question, and be honest,” I say.

And, playfully, Sage rolls his eyes, presumably waiting for the latest no-win situation to materialize.

“Do my breasts look fake?”

“
What?
Where is
this
coming from?” he says.

“Nowhere. I'm just asking.”

“Your breasts are beautiful,” he says. Smart man. “I wouldn't marry a girl with ugly ones.” Okay, not quite as smart.

“Oh, so are you going to divorce me when they stretch and sag, then? Perky isn't forever.”

The coffee machine beeps and Sage pours two cups and hands me one. We sit together.

“One day, I am going to get my act together, I promise. I'm going to be so clean, it will annoy you. I'm going to be more Martha Stewart than either of our mothers.”

This is a lie. At best, a weakling of a promise.

There is no way I will ever surpass his mother, a woman, perpetually primped and perfect, who practically tidies in her sleep.

And Mom, a retired law professor and odd breed of feminist, preaches that cleaning is both a mindless escape from a stressful existence and a rudimentary form of female empowerment. One time I made the grave mistake of breaking out some Betty Friedan from my college days, telling Mom that domestic life was like a “comfortable concentration camp,” that I didn't want to morph into an “anonymous biological robot in a docile mass,” but I should've figured that quoting a vanguard out of context would get me nowhere.
You don't have to be a Betty to be a feminist, Prue. Betty wouldn't want blind allegiance to her ideas; that's exactly the kind of thing she fought so hard against.

Sage laughs hard, nearly spitting his coffee. “I'll believe it when I see it. Too bad I wasn't born a generation ago; I could have given that ring to the other O'Malley woman, the one who knows how to replace a vacuum bag.”

“You would've had to fight Dad for her. We both know how that would've turned out,” I say. Tears find me as I squeeze Sage's thin arm. I've seen pictures of Sage from college when he played shortstop at Duke, and he was definitely bigger, a brawnier version of his current self.

Dad was six-four. He was a walk-on on Michigan's football team who spent four years on the bench. Unlike Sage, Dad never lost his bulk. The first time Sage met Dad, fear overtook Sage's big blue eyes. But when Dad opened his mouth, Sage's face relaxed. Dad was a barbless critter, a “brilliant teddy bear,” as Mom liked to call him. Dad was always a big fan of Phelps and thus prepared to hate Sage. But when Dad learned I had reeled in another angler, everything was okay. These two men—Dad and Sage—separated for mere moments by a generation, an estranged almost-son, and the formality of a first meeting, were in no time united, talking
shop about wet and dry fishing flies, antique reels, and future fishing trips. For better or worse, and lucky for Sage, Dad had an immediate and implicit trust of a true angler.

“We should probably call Mom. Let her know we're getting hitched,” I say. We had decided to keep Paris for us and call everyone when we got home.

“She knows everything. I asked them for your hand last summer in Wisconsin.”

“Last
summer
?” When Dad was alive. He knew about this.

After everything happened, Mom abandoned her teaching post at the law school and packed up my childhood home, an old Manhattan brownstone. Michael and I not-so-jokingly begged her to give us the brownstone and if not, to stay here, to stay close, but she wasn't up for the grief and pity game. She moved to the private cabin where we spent summers on Bird Lake.

“It was June. I was so scared. Your parents and I sat on the big porch overlooking the lake. I think your dad could sense I was nervous or wanted to punish me for what I was about to do because he mixed me the stiffest Irish Delight. You were just back from a run, showering in the cabin. When I asked, their eyes lit up. They hugged me. Your father nearly crushed me.”

“Good call asking Mom too,” I say.

When Sage describes this moment, this pivotal moment in his short life and mine, I smile, fighting tears and losing. The image is striking and simple and beautiful. I have to imagine any glee in their eyes was mixed with equal parts sadness. This was the very first step in the process by which they would lose me.

“Were they sad?” I say.

“A little,” he says. Maybe because it is true, or maybe be
cause he knows this is the right answer. The kind answer. “I think they were a little sad.”

“I can't believe neither of them slipped,” I say. Keeping secrets does not run in my family.

Sage nods. “Unlike you, your parents can keep a secret. I thought your mom would let it out though. I'm impressed. Even Michael kept his big mouth shut.”

“Michael knows too?” My older brother, Michael, is a seasoned gossip—even worse than I am. He reads Page Six like it's the Bible and speaks of celebrities as if they are close comrades, drinking buddies who just happen to grace the cover of weekly magazines.

“Well, let's call then. Mom's probably worried that you've come to your senses and are having second thoughts. It's been six months.”

I call. The phone barely rings once before Mom answers. For a moment, I think I hear Dad's gravelly voice on the line too, which of course I don't because he's gone and because Dad hated the telephone and almost every other breed of technology. I tell Mom what she already knows and hear what I predicted I would hear: repetitions of that one easy word—“congratulations”—that fits most every kind of good news. While we're still on the phone, Michael calls and demands to be patched in, which I don't know how to do. He cannot fathom how I'm a big-time lawyer at a fat Manhattan firm and I don't know how to use the conference function on a phone. I tell him I've inherited the Luddite genes of our dear father and I confirm what he too already knows: He's finally getting the brother he's always wanted. He asks about the ring, and I tell him it's beautiful. I leave out the part about how my nemesis picked it since said nemesis's darling
son is standing by. At the end of our short call, Mom asks to talk to the “man of the moment.”