Her mind was racing. Her mouth was watering. Her bank account wouldn’t be able to withstand the assault she had planned—the wines alone would cost in the triple digits. Becky happily busted out her For Emergencies Only credit card without even bothering to worry about what she’d do when she got the bill.
Andrew was waiting for her at the bar again on Friday night, looking considerably less hangdog than he had the time before.
“Are you two friends again?” Sarah asked.
“Something like that,” Becky said, but her tone must have given her away because Eduardo and Dave immediately began chorusing in a combination of English and Spanish about how Becky, even with her diminished
culo,
was back in love and would, God willing, stop ruining paying customers’ dinners as a result. She pulled her bags of groceries out of the walk-in where she’d stashed them, added a loaf of bread and two bottles of wine, and hurried out to meet Andrew at the bar.
“What’s all this?” he asked, eyeing the bags.
“Food.”
“You’re going to cook?” he asked. Clearly, whatever he’d been imagining, dinner hadn’t been included.
“I’m going to cook,” she said.
I’m going to knock your socks off,
she thought.
I’m going to make you forget every other girl you ever kissed. I’m going to make you love me for the rest of your life.
Back at his apartment, Andrew lit candles while Becky spread fig jam on the flatbread, added drifts of cheese and thin slices of prosciutto, and popped it under the broiler.
“What are you making?” he asked, watching her every move as she worked in his closet-sized kitchen. She hoped he liked what he was seeing. She was wearing Old Faithful, her Gap denim miniskirt, and what she hoped wasn’t too much perfume.
“Appetizers,” she told him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned her back against the kitchen counter, nuzzling her neck. “You smell nice.”
Okay, then, not too much perfume.
“I bought us something,” he said, reaching over her head into a cabinet. She smiled when he handed her a can of mandarin oranges. He’d remembered. That was good.
She pulled the pizza out of the oven, set water to boil for the asparagus, and dredged the pounded-thin slices of veal in flour while he took his first bite of the flatbread. “Wow,” he said, “this is amazing.”
“Isn’t it?” This wasn’t a night, she’d decided, for false modesty. And the pizza was fantastic, the pungent cheese blending perfectly with the sweet fig jam.
“Come here,” he said. She wrapped an apron around her waist, set the veal to sauté in olive oil and butter, and complied. “You feel so good,” he whispered. “And everything smells delicious.”
“Patience,” she said, smiling against his neck. “We’re just getting started.”
She poured the wine, trimmed the asparagus, crumbled blue cheese over the veal slices, and set them in the preheated oven. The potatoes were bubbling away; the cheeses were warming on the counter. She handed him the plates, the glasses, the wine, two linen napkins, and the forks she’d already decided they wouldn’t be using for long, and led him into the living room.
“Relax,” she told him. With his shoulders tensed and the corner of his mouth twitching, Andrew looked more like a man with a dentist appointment than someone gearing up for a night of gustatory and sexual ecstasy. “I promise, whatever happens, this won’t hurt a bit.”
Twenty minutes later, dinner was served. Andrew spread a sheet out over the floor, and he sat there, cross-legged, one knee jouncing up and down.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh, wow.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, looking at each other shyly, tasting everything.
“It’s so good,” he said, pushing his plate away. “I’m just not that hungry.” He tried to smile. “I’m nervous, I guess.”
“Close your eyes,” Becky said. He looked worried—perhaps imagining that she’d be breaking out restraints, or a video camera—but complied.
She lifted the glass of wine to his lips. “Take a little sip,” she told him. “And keep your eyes shut.”
He drank. His lips curved up in a smile. “Open,” she said and fed him a morsel of veal. He chewed slowly. “Mmm.”
“Want to try?”
He gave her a spear of asparagus, easing it slowly into her mouth. She heard him breathing harder as she brushed his fingertips with her lips. Then he took a pinch of rice. She licked the grains off his fingers, then sucked, hearing him sigh. “Can I…,” he whispered. She opened her eyes a slit. He’d dipped his fingers in the wineglass and was holding them out for her to suck.
He groaned out loud as she drew his index finger between her lips. Becky took a mouthful of wine, held it in her mouth, leaned forward, and kissed him, letting it trickle over his tongue. They kissed and kissed, pushing the plates away, and then Andrew was on top of her, grinding against her in the flickering candlelight, and her head was full of every good smell—wine and cheese and fresh-baked bread and the smell of his skin. “Becky,” he breathed.
She pushed herself up onto the futon. Andrew ground himself against her.
“Does this mean,” she gasped, “that we’re skipping the cheese course?”
“Now,” he panted. “I can’t wait anymore.”
“Just one more thing.” She hurried into the kitchen, past the cheeses, the honey, and the champagne she’d brought, finding his little can of mandarin oranges, popping the top, spilling the fruit and syrup into a bowl. Back in the living room, Andrew was lying on the futon, his shirt off, staring at her so intently she felt dizzy.
“Dessert,” she said, as she took one of the segments of orange between her fingers, sliding it slowly into his mouth.
He sighed. “Becky,” he murmured.
“Just wait,” she whispered. She sent up a quick prayer that he wouldn’t burst out laughing at what she had planned next and then figured, really, would a man who’d shared his most intimate moments with a piece of rubber-backed rope-spun cotton laugh at anything?
Fuck it,
she thought,
here goes.
She pulled off her shirt, leaving only the lacy black underwire bra, and tilted the bowl, spilling a trickle of syrup down her neck, over the tops of her breasts.
“Come here,” she said, drawing him toward her. His tongue worked hard at her neck. She eased another slippery segment down between her breasts, and he dove for it. She thought of pigs digging for truffles, pioneers sending buckets down wells, hoping for sweet, clear water. The candles flickered, sending shadows dancing across his face. She felt him, hard against her thigh, as she took a slippery segment between her teeth and kissed him, using her tongue to ease the orange between his lips. With that, she reached for his zipper, eased his pants down over his hips, and…
Oh, my God.
“Is this a joke?” she asked, staring down at him.
“No joke,” he said, in a strangled-sounding voice as he tried to yank his pants off over his shoes.
“It’s real?”
“Real,” he confirmed.
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Have you ever been in pornos?”
“Just medical school,” he said, grabbing her hand.
“How big is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on, of course you do.”
“I never measured.”
“Yowza,” she said, trying not to stare. She let him wrap her fingers as far as they would go. She thought about French baguettes, still warm in their paper wrappers. She thought about plums, rice paper–wrapped spring rolls, crepes filled with apricot jam, beggar’s purses stuffed with caviar and sour cream, every delicious thing she’d ever tasted. She wanted it to be the best blow job he’d ever had, but it quickly became apparent that it was more than likely the only blow job he’d ever had. He laced his fingers in her hair and pumped his hips so vigorously that she felt herself gagging.
“Easy,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up.
“Not to worry,” she told him. “Hang on. I have an idea.”
She padded into his kitchen, opening the cupboards and the refrigerator until she found what she was looking for—the olive oil she’d been using to cook. He’d put it in the refrigerator, which was twenty-seven kinds of wrong, but she figured it would warm up quickly enough and she could lecture him later. Back in the living room, she arranged herself on the futon. “Come here,” she whispered. As he stood over her, still wearing his shirt and his shoes, she unhooked her bra, picked up the olive oil, and poured some into his hands.
He swung himself over her, straddling her side with his thighs, rubbing himself with his oiled hands, cupping her breasts and rubbing himself between them.
“Ah,” he said, sliding back and forth, getting the idea quickly.
“Okay?” she whispered, as he worked himself back and forth.
“I think…,” he panted. “I need…”
She poured more oil in her hand and tucked her hand underneath him, her palm rubbing against the swollen flesh as it moved back and forth over her, breathless underneath his weight.
“Ah,” he groaned and shoved himself up on his hands. A moment later, he collapsed against her, groaning her name into her hair.
Ten minutes later, they were spooning on the futon. “Wow,” he said. The ruins of dinner were scattered across the floor—plates still crusted with melted Gorgonzola and potatoes on the floor, half-filled, fingerprint-smeared wineglasses balanced next to his digital clock.
“I know.”
“Can I do anything for you?” he whispered. She shook her head. There was a worm of guilt twisting in her belly as she thought about her boyfriend, probably waiting up for her with two fillets of sword-fish, white and inoffensive, in the fridge. She thought that if they didn’t actually have intercourse, it was somehow less like cheating, more like a humanitarian mission, the kind of thing ex-presidents won the Nobel Peace Prize for.
“Becky,” Andrew whispered. “My hero.”
“Go to sleep,” she whispered back. A minute later, still smiling, he did.
They dated for two years while Andrew did the fourth and fifth years of his residency, then when he landed a fellowship at Pennsylvania Hospital, they moved to Philadelphia. Becky convinced Sarah to dump the Marxist grad student she was dating and move with her. They pooled their savings, plus the money Becky’s father had left her, and rented the space that would become Mas. Life was wonderful. And Becky was sure she knew what was coming the night Andrew led her to the couch and sat down, holding both of her hands and looking into her eyes.
“There’s something I want to ask you,” he began.
“Okay,” Becky said, hoping that she’d guessed right as to what would be coming next.
Andrew smiled and pulled her close. She closed her eyes.
Here it comes,
she thought and wondered if he’d bought a ring already or if they’d be shopping for one together.
He brought his mouth close to her ear. “I’d like you to…”
Be my wife,
Becky’s mind filled in.
“…meet my mother,” said Andrew.
Becky’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“Well, I think you should meet her before we get married.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Andrew Rabinowitz, that was lame.”
Her husband-to-be looked chastened. “Really?”
“I insist that you do it again.”
Andrew shrugged and dropped to his knee in front of her. “Rebecca Mara Rothstein, I will love you forever, and I want to be with you every day for the rest of my life.”
“That’s better,” she murmured, as he pulled a black velvet box out of his pocket.
“So that’s a yes?”
She looked at the ring and squealed with delight. “That’s a yes,” she said. She slipped the ring on her finger and tried not to think about how even as he was proposing to her, his mother had come first.
“Are you awake?” Andrew asked, nuzzling her curls.
“Mmmmph,” Becky said and groaned, peering over her husband’s shoulder and hazarding a glance at the clock. Seven o’clock already? “Need more sleep,” she said, pulling the pillow over her head.
“Do you want me to call Sarah and tell her you’re sick? You can stay in bed all day.”
Becky shook her head, sighed again, and pushed herself up and out of bed. Her intention was to work right until she went into labor. Sarah, who’d agreed to serve as Becky’s doula and assist her during the birth, had raised her eyebrows. “You know best,” she said. But lately, she’d started following Becky around the tiny kitchen with the
PISO MOJADO
sign and insisting that the chefs keep a large pot of water boiling on the back burner “just in case.”
Becky gulped down her prenatal vitamins and held out her arms. “Quickly,” she said. “While it’s just the two of us.” Andrew tilted up her chin, and they kissed. Becky’s eyes slipped shut.
The telephone started ringing. Andrew gave a guilty start. “Let me just get that,” he said.
Becky sighed and shook her head. She knew who was on the line without even looking at the caller ID. E-mail was Mimi’s first line of communication, and if she didn’t get a response within an hour, she’d start calling, no matter how early in the morning it was, or how late at night. And if Andrew didn’t call her right back, she’d have him paged. “What happens if you don’t return the page?” Becky had once asked. Andrew’s brow furrowed. “I guess she’d start calling hospitals. And morgues.”
Becky curled on the couch. “Hi, Mom,” Andrew said, giving his wife an unhappy shrug. Andrew knew she didn’t like his mother much, but she didn’t think he had any sense of the way that during nights when she couldn’t sleep she’d entertain long, vivid fantasies of her mother-in-law dying of some rare disease that would render her conveniently mute before whisking her off to the land from which you couldn’t page, e-mail, phone, or fax your son every fifteen minutes. She tried not to complain about Mimi because when she did Andrew would look serious and give her a speech that inevitably began with the words
Becky, she is my mother, and she does this out of love.
It would have helped if she and Mimi had something other than Andrew in common. They didn’t. For starters, Mimi had little use for food. She was a champion noneater, a world-class under-orderer. If you asked for two poached eggs and whole-wheat toast, she’d have one poached egg and sliced tomatoes. If you were only having coffee, she’d just have water, and if you just wanted water, she’d have a glass without ice.