Read Online Instant Love by Jami Attenberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jami Attenberg
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And then when they were done, I would demand some attention until I was done, too. Bite my nipples until I tell you to stop. Do it harder. All right. Now you can stop.
Alan, however, required attention. Alan wanted ownership. No problem. He owned me. From the minute we had met—an accident, I walked into the wrong apartment, the expensive one featuring four bedrooms and a balcony with a view and light, light everywhere, that he was showing, not the sullen one-bedroom I eventually took—I liked him, with his grownup suit and his quick mouth and his big, hungry lips. He thought I was someone special, so he showed me around the apartment, and for a little while, I let him believe it because I wanted to keep talking to him. He had me in his clutches, he was thinking, but it was really I who did not want to let him go.
At the end of the tour, after he knew everything about me in ten minutes flat—Single? Right now, yes. Jewish? Sort of, half, once removed on my father’s side. A scientist? Yes, you’re right, I am a very smart young lady—he asked me what I thought of the apartment.
And then I touched his shoulder and said, “Actually I think I’m lost.”
He shook his finger at me, and stretched out his lips, revealing two rows of large, clean white teeth. I bet he had braces forever, I thought. “I had a feeling you weren’t looking in the right place,” he said.
And then he put his hand on my shoulder, and we stood like that, hands on shoulders, until he asked me out to dinner. Even after I said yes, we still held on for another minute, finally interrupted by a knock at the door, a gasp of air between us, and then the entrance of the next client, a divorce lawyer from Minneapolis who was moving on up in the world, taking his wife and two daughters and leaving the Twin Cities behind for a big Chicago paycheck.
Boy, have I got a view for you.
THE REST OF the Wolfowitz story tumbled out later, when I was lying on my back, my head dangling over the edge of the mattress, and Alan was sitting straight up, back against the headboard of my bed, one hand resting on his soft, hairy chest. Alan, he could never leave a story unfinished.
Naomi and Wolfowitz dated steadily up until winter break. Then she went with him and his family back east for a week of skiing and board games by the fireplace. When she returned, they weren’t speaking. Wolfowitz didn’t take her to the Valentine’s Day dance. He went stag instead and she stayed home, missing the first dance ever in her high-school career, which was a very big deal, according to Alan. A week later they were back in love, and then they were on the outs again just two weeks after that. Turns out there was talk that Mrs. Wolfowitz had walked in on something untoward between her son and Naomi while on vacation, and the Wolfowitzes no longer viewed Naomi as potential wife material.
“They were doing it?” I said.
“My aunt Esther got plastered at my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party and told me that when Mrs. Wolfowitz walked in my mom was on her knees,” he said.
“Oy,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
So Walter snuck in there, telling Naomi how she was a princess, a goddess, that if he were her man he would never let her go, not for a stupid fight, not for anything. And then one day in April, after a fresh rain, he walked her home from school. As they leaped over puddles and brushed their heads against the rain-soaked leaves dangling from the trees above, she let him hold her hand proudly.
“For all the world to see,” I said.
“She was a prize, my mother,” mused Alan. “She still is.”
I rolled over and put my head on his chest, turned and faced the ceiling.
“They got married right after high-school graduation. She had me that November.”
I started counting backward, November, October…
“Wait, I’m doing the math,” I said.
“I’ve been doing it all my life,” he said.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Alan gave me a diamond
Alan, however, required attention. Alan wanted ownership. No problem. He owned me. From the minute we had met—an accident, I walked into the wrong apartment, the expensive one featuring four bedrooms and a balcony with a view and light, light everywhere, that he was showing, not the sullen one-bedroom I eventually took—I liked him, with his grownup suit and his quick mouth and his big, hungry lips. He thought I was someone special, so he showed me around the apartment, and for a little while, I let him believe it because I wanted to keep talking to him. He had me in his clutches, he was thinking, but it was really I who did not want to let him go.
At the end of the tour, after he knew everything about me in ten minutes flat—Single? Right now, yes. Jewish? Sort of, half, once removed on my father’s side. A scientist? Yes, you’re right, I am a very smart young lady—he asked me what I thought of the apartment.
And then I touched his shoulder and said, “Actually I think I’m lost.”
He shook his finger at me, and stretched out his lips, revealing two rows of large, clean white teeth. I bet he had braces forever, I thought. “I had a feeling you weren’t looking in the right place,” he said.
And then he put his hand on my shoulder, and we stood like that, hands on shoulders, until he asked me out to dinner. Even after I said yes, we still held on for another minute, finally interrupted by a knock at the door, a gasp of air between us, and then the entrance of the next client, a divorce lawyer from Minneapolis who was moving on up in the world, taking his wife and two daughters and leaving the Twin Cities behind for a big Chicago paycheck.
Boy, have I got a view for you.
THE REST OF the Wolfowitz story tumbled out later, when I was lying on my back, my head dangling over the edge of the mattress, and Alan was sitting straight up, back against the headboard of my bed, one hand resting on his soft, hairy chest. Alan, he could never leave a story unfinished.
Naomi and Wolfowitz dated steadily up until winter break. Then she went with him and his family back east for a week of skiing and board games by the fireplace. When she returned, they weren’t speaking. Wolfowitz didn’t take her to the Valentine’s Day dance. He went stag instead and she stayed home, missing the first dance ever in her high-school career, which was a very big deal, according to Alan. A week later they were back in love, and then they were on the outs again just two weeks after that. Turns out there was talk that Mrs. Wolfowitz had walked in on something untoward between her son and Naomi while on vacation, and the Wolfowitzes no longer viewed Naomi as potential wife material.
“They were doing it?” I said.
“My aunt Esther got plastered at my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party and told me that when Mrs. Wolfowitz walked in my mom was on her knees,” he said.
“Oy,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said.
So Walter snuck in there, telling Naomi how she was a princess, a goddess, that if he were her man he would never let her go, not for a stupid fight, not for anything. And then one day in April, after a fresh rain, he walked her home from school. As they leaped over puddles and brushed their heads against the rain-soaked leaves dangling from the trees above, she let him hold her hand proudly.
“For all the world to see,” I said.
“She was a prize, my mother,” mused Alan. “She still is.”
I rolled over and put my head on his chest, turned and faced the ceiling.
“They got married right after high-school graduation. She had me that November.”
I started counting backward, November, October…
“Wait, I’m doing the math,” I said.
“I’ve been doing it all my life,” he said.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Alan gave me a diamond
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