A Short Story Set In San Francisco
What I Am To You Is Not What You Mean To Me
or, Ask For The Sea
Among the other things, I learned that San Francisco is shy.
I have fond memories of driving into cities where the skyline or a famous view suddenly appears before you, at the crest of a hill for example. Everyone knows the famous view of Manhattan from across the river, impossibly tall buildings reaching for and touching the sky. And I often picture Las Vegas, which sits in a Valley, with its casinos lit up and so familiar from so far away.
I wanted that sort of experience of having San Francisco suddenly appear before me, fully realized – but that is not San Francisco’s way. Instead it revealed itself gradually as we made our way in from the airport. First the Bay Bridge, then a few buildings of downtown, the familiar pyramid highest among them, and then eventually Alcatraz Island alone in the bay, and finally the great red-orange bridge with nothing but the ocean behind it.
Each sight was spectacular in its way, but I told Aaron that I was disappointed.
“You see all the postcards taken from the other side of the bridge,” he said to me. “Where you can see the Golden Gate and Alcatraz off on the side and then downtown.”
“Yeah, where do they take those pictures from? Can we go there?” I asked.
“I don’t like those pictures,” he told me. “That’s not San Francisco. They’re cheating. They’re lying. This city only let’s you see her in bits and pieces. I know I’m sounding completely ridiculous.”
“You sound like a poet. You won’t take me to the other side of the bridge where we can see that view?”
“The fog is coming now. That’s why that view is a lie. You can almost never actually see it. Even if there’s just a tiny bit of fog you can’t see all the way to the city.”
“Oh.”
“I’m trying to decide if that thing you said about sounding like a poet was a compliment or if I should be offended,” he said.
Of course it was a compliment. I assured him so, though I was sure he had been joking himself. I had not flown to California to make fun of him and I assumed that he knew this.
Aaron, who I met in college and loved from the first moment, had met me at the airport as we had agreed. Had Aaron invited me or had I invited myself? It was unclear. He had often said I should come visit, I had always wanted to visit. So I was there, two days after Christmas and five days before the New Year – that was what mattered.
To most people I suppose this is a story about how two months before I was to be married I went to California to visit and old college friend, and maybe to sleep with him. But to me this is a story about San Francisco.
#
In deciding to make the trip, I spent a tremendous amount of time trying to imagine what would happen, if anything. My best prediction, what you could reasonably call my favorite fantasy, involved more cinematic drama than I was likely to get from Aaron, but I liked to think that our time together might go something like this:
We would spend a long day visiting tourist attractions, near the end of which I would finally give my camera to another tourist, who would take our picture together. The person taking the picture might tease us, “Oh, come one now, act like you love her!” And Aaron would oblige, holding me closer, maybe even planting a kiss on my cheek for the photo.
He would smell good, holding me close like that, and I wouldn’t move away from him, nor would I let him move back to a comfortable distance from me. Actually, in the fantasy, he wouldn’t want to.
I always figured we’d be in cabs, because I had no idea Aaron would have a car or be driving and I had been told that San Francisco was a great city for taxis, since only the cab drivers knew where anything was. But perhaps it would be in our plans to drink wine with dinner and so Aaron would not want to drive, and so we would find a taxi. We would have seafood for dinner in a restaurant with a view of the water. Maybe on the water.
In a cab on the way home I could lean into him and say, “I’m glad I’m here.” And he would say, “I am, too.” Maybe he would kiss the top of my head.
On the front step he would stop, key in the door, and look at me and say, “I want to kiss you.” And I would let him. And if he said, “I want to kiss you now and take you inside and make love to you,” I would say, “Yes” and “yes” and “yes.” But more likely he would only ask to kiss me, and we would kiss and go inside.
#
I fell in love with him while continually telling myself how fortunate I was to have him as a friend, how glad I was our relationship was platonic.
I didn’t know a single girl who knew him and didn’t desire him. But unlike most men who are desired and know it, Aaron always made me feel like I was the desirable one, he the lucky one to be graced by my presence. I suppose he made everyone else feel that way, too.
Only after I’d known him a year did he begin to open up with me and talk at any length about his life. He was always cautious at best when it came to his love life, which was of course what I was most interested in. He had no steady girlfriend – that much was clear from his schedule alone. But he had stories.
As with all things about Aaron, his stories were vague. They were populated by a “tall blonde girl” or the “redheaded stepsister (no, I’m not joking) of a friend,” rather than people with actual names. I also could not usually tell if the encounters he spoke of were casual flings or simply episodes in longer relationships. Most of his stories were told for comic effect. I always encouraged them, though he was rarely reluctant to share. I had the impression they were no different in his mind than any story about an incident in class – only perhaps he found sex and relationships less interesting than, say, science.
I took this as a sign that our relationship was strong but platonic. I told friends I was glad for that. My roommate gave me an odd look when I tried that one on her, but usually let it go. Except one night when she was drunk and was less considerate: “You wouldn’t want to be platonic with him if he wanted to be more than platonic with you,” she said. I laughed. It seemed sad to me that my roommate lived in such a jaded world.
One night Aaron told me a story about the “tall blonde girl,” who figured in enough stories that I was sure she must have been a steady girlfriend for some time. It was a cute if not hilarious story about an attempt to change positions by rolling together that ended with the couple falling, painfully, to the floor. I was laughing harder than I needed to and then I started crying. Aaron handed me a napkin and let me have a moment. He put a hand on my elbow. When I stopped he smiled at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “No more of those stories.”
#
Aaron’s bookcase was stacked two layers deep with mostly worn, beat-up books. Where the books didn’t go two deep he had filled out the shelves with photos, paperweights, and knick knacks from various places he’d visited. He had left me alone to unpack in his bedroom, where he insisted I would sleep while he stayed on the couch, and I was snooping.
There was a photo frame in the shape of the Hard Rock Hotel guitar, the photo window a circle in the body of the guitar. The picture was of Aaron with his left arm draped around Toya, my college roommate and best friend, his right arm around our friend Erika; both girls were kissing him on the cheek. He had the sort of smile you’d expect from a man in between two beautiful girls.
The picture was mine; I took it with my camera and gave one of the double prints to Aaron who said he could take it back home to Montana with him and use it as proof of the sinful excess of Las Vegas. We’d laughed about that. That was the only picture with people from UNLV, so far as I could tell, and I had to tell myself it was stupid to be hurt that he didn’t have a picture of me up anywhere.
He had pictures that I recognized of family members and two with a dark-haired girl I did not recognize. In one, they were posed with the Golden Gate bridge behind them, not smiling so much as they seemed to be gritting their teeth against the wind. The girl’s hair was a wreck from the wind and their faces were both overly pink in the cheeks and nose. It was the sort of picture a girl would hate of herself and that a man would love.
The other picture seemed to have been taken by the girl by holding her left arm out and aiming the camera back at Aaron and herself. Here their smiles were genuine and glowing. They were either lying down at different angles or the girl was resting her head against Aaron’s shoulder, I couldn’t tell from the strange angle of the picture.
Neither picture was overtly romantic, but it was clear from both pictures that Aaron and the dark-haired girl had been lovers. They shared a closeness, a comfort with being well inside each other’s space that is exclusive to people who are sleeping together. The oldest friends have a distance, even when in an embrace.
The dark-haired girl was very pretty in a not threatening way. No one would dispute her soft beauty, but she was not the sort of starkly gorgeous pin-up who instantly inspired indignation, either. She had big eyes, also dark, and thin lips. She had a very small nose. She looked like the pretty girl who has many great friendships with men – none of them romantic. She looked like the sort of girl you aren’t lying to when you say sooner or later guys will notice and start knocking down her door. She looked like someone you would just instantly like, no questions asked.
I hated her. I stared at her picture and despised her being. Wherever she was, whatever her relationship to Aaron, she was not with him, but I was, and I reveled in that small taste of victory.
Aaron knocked suddenly on the door, startling me. I told him to come in.
“Well, you’re in San Francisco now so I think it’s only appropriate that your first meal should be seafood,” he said. “You like seafood, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then we can go down to the Wharf. There are tons of restaurants. It’s not too far but there are hills and it could get cold tonight. I can drive if you want.”
“No,” I said. “Let’s walk.”
#
At one point in college, I told Aaron quite suddenly, “I kissed a guy at a retreat one summer in high school when I had a boyfriend.”
Aaron raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup as he took a sip. Many of my memories of talking with Aaron during college are in coffee shops. We didn’t have a favorite haunt, but spent time at campus cafes and small, smoky bars inside casinos, and a Starbucks near his apartment.
I said, “It was a good kiss.”
“I see,” Aaron said. “So?”
“I was just wondering how you feel about cheating. I mean, not that I think anyone is really in favor of it. But some people are, like, really, really against it.”
Aaron laughed. “Why am I laughing?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Have you ever been with a girl who had a boyfriend?” I asked.
“Not so far as I know. Do I want to know where this is going?”
I said, “I was thinking of kissing you tonight, before we go home.” I was keeping on hand on my paper coffee cup and keeping the cup firmly against the table to keep my hands from shaking. I had a boyfriend at this point who I had lost meaningful interest in weeks earlier. It seemed he felt the same way but we were still at least officially together. I was tired of dating and breaking up. I wanted to have sex with Aaron. I didn’t even want a relationship. I just wanted to have sex with because he was a friend and he was attractive and – this I told myself, knowing it was not at all true – we were only friends so there would be no entanglements or love or hurt feelings.
“Well,” Aaron said. “I wondered, but I didn’t want to flatter myself.”
“I’m not looking for a relationship or anything complicated. I just want to kiss you,” I said. “Would that bother you? Considering that I do sort of still have a boyfriend?”
He said, “Jessica, you are a truly gorgeous girl, and I won’t lie by saying I haven’t thought about kissing you.” And I knew he was beginning his explanation of why he would not let me kiss him. The next month he graduated and found a job in California and moved away.
#
I called my fiancé before we left and told him I was safe, that my hotel was nice, that the city was beautiful. I told him I loved him. I felt dirty and guilty lying, but then went out into the living room and Aaron smiled and led me to the door and I forgot all about those feelings.
We walked to the wharf. It was a pleasant walk, downhill, and it was a gorgeous evening. When the hostess suggested a patio table we agreed enthusiastically. It was quieter outside than in the main dining room, and the patio was actually built out over the water.
I could hardly believe it was happening already.
I ordered a glass of wine (one drink is safe, that’s my rule) and Aaron told the server to just bring us a bottle. When he asked if I’d like the glass filled I refused and he didn’t push me. So he wasn’t trying to get me drunk, I thought. I ordered a seafood pasta dish and Aaron asked for the swordfish, though he said he’d never had it before.
Once the sun set, the temperature dropped quickly, especially with the water just below us. Our server came to our table with three candles – for light, if not warmth. Aaron offered his shirt, if I was cold. “I have an undershirt on,” he said. “The cold doesn’t bother me.”
“Maybe that’s because of all the wine you’ve had,” I said.
He shrugged, and smiled. “It’s possible.”
I wanted him so badly. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the picture on his nightstand, the brown-haired girl’s smile and the familiar way he held her.
I had been sipping my wine slowly, so that it would last through the meal, but without much thinking about it, I downed what was left in my glass. “You know,” I said, “maybe I wouldn’t mind a refill.”
The wine helped against the chill in the air.
“In one of your emails you mentioned some bar you like,” I said. “Is that very far out of our way on the way home?” I’d only been in California a few hours, but I figured what the hell – it wasn’t going to be that long a trip.
“No,” Aaron said. “It’s just a few blocks. It’s a good place. Quiet and the drinks are strong and not too expensive for the city.”
I nodded. “That’s good.”
I was thinking something but was having difficulty putting the words into proper order. I couldn’t even decide what words to use. Before I could work it out our server arrived with our food and the long, silent moment between us was broken. Aaron said, “That looks so good,” and motioned at my plate.
“Yeah,” I said, and then, “Aaron?”
“Yeah?”
I decided to keep it as simple as possible: “Do you think we can stop at that bar on the way home?”
An expression that could either have been confusion or bemusement passed across his face. “Yeah,” he said, and then he saw I was looking right at him so he put on a sort of blank poker face, but I kept looking at him and he took a sip of his wine and wasn’t looking away from me, either. I thought maybe he understood.
He put down his wine glass and cleared his throat. “I mean. Yeah. If you want to. Yeah we can,” he said.
We didn’t talk much after that, except to compliment the food, and the wine, and the service, and the beautiful night. I wanted to ask him about the photograph in his room, and I wanted to ask him if he thought it would be wrong for us to sleep together. And just how wrong it would be. And if it might be worth it anyway. And mostly I wanted to ask him if he had any desire to sleep with me in the first place, regardless of any of the other questions. But I couldn’t imagine how to bring that up over a nice seafood dinner.
Aaron paid the bill, even though I offered to help, and I insisted that I wanted to buy dinner at least for a few meals. But Aaron only said, “It’s no trouble.”
We walked back through the restaurant and out onto the street, where it was suddenly cold. I was shivering so much that Aaron noticed right away.
“Are you cold?” he asked, and he rolled his eyes a little bit, too, to indicate that he knew it was a stupid question. I nodded, and he said, “We can buy you a sweatshirt along here somewhere.”
“No, we don’t need to do that,” I said and then – even before the words were out of my mouth I was blaming them on the third glass of wine – I added, “but you can put your arm around me. That would help.”
He did, but he hesitated first. Maybe he was uncomfortable or uncertain, or maybe he was nervous. He was much bigger than me and his arm went easily around my shoulders, which I have always loved (I always loved this about my fiancée, as well, though I was not then thinking about him. I was thinking about Aaron’s arm and – still – the girl with him in the picture in his bedroom.)
We walked two blocks and came to an intersection where the street suddenly headed uphill at a much steeper rate. “Do you want to go to the bar?” Aaron asked. “We can go up this street.”
“OK,” I said. “Yes,” I said. “I want to go.”
Aaron lifted his arm off my shoulder and took my hand instead. I don’t thinkI had ever held his hand before. It was foreign and uncomfortable at first and then we passed a homeless man who was laying, possibly passed out or asleep, at the entrance to an alley and Aaron squeezed my hand, his tightening grip strong and reassuring, and it filled me again with a desire I could barely express.
We heard the bar before we could see it, except that neither of us suspected that the commotion we were hearing was actually coming from the bar until we were standing directly outside the door and the reality was plain.
“Well, this is definitely strange,” Aaron said. “I’m sorry. I don’t – I mean, I’ve never seen it like this.”
“Do you want to go in?” I asked.
Aaron said, “Do you?”
I did not. It was crowded and loud inside and while normally I have no complaints about either of those conditions, that was not what I was looking for that night. But I wanted to have been to the bar. Three glasses of wine notwithstanding, I wanted to drink more. I would want to have had more than three glasses of wine come the next morning.
#
When I woke up I heard running water and it was dark like night but the clock said differently. The water sound was the rain. Everyone had told me it didn’t rain in San Francisco – not hard at least. But it was pouring.
My head hurt from the wine. Aaron’s bed was comfortable and I was warm underneath the covers. I was wearing flannel pajamas, as well. It was cozy and I wanted to fall back asleep, but my head was throbbing too badly. I needed water and some aspirin, so I got up.
The apartment was chilly, and the hardwood floors were cold on my bare feet. Aaron was asleep and snoring on the couch in the living room, but a pair of his slippers was sitting on the floor next to him so I slipped them on and went to the kitchen.
I made toast and drank a glass of orange juice. In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom I found Advil and took four.
Aaron was still sleeping, oblivious to the noise I was making in the kitchen. I walked over and sat on a rug in front of the couch next to him. I put my hand on the edge of the couch, but I was afraid to actually touch him. A naughty thought occurred to me, a way of waking him, but I ignored the impulse.
Many books and movies make watching someone sleep out to be very romantic and interesting, but Aaron asleep was boring. I wanted him awake, but didn’t want to wake him. I went to take a shower and turned the water up until it was very hot, almost scalding my skin, and the bathroom was thick with steam. I tried not to think about the door opening, Aaron creeping up on me cautiously in the steam. I stayed in the shower a long time because I liked the warmth and it made my headache feel better, and also because I wanted that door to open.
#
I feel compelled to defend myself, at least briefly, against the surely negative impression I have created. Perhaps what I can offer is not truly a defense, but anyway let me try to explain.
I did love my fiancé. And I did want to be with him and I did want him to be my husband. He was the only man I had ever slept with. I did not want him to be my only. That sounds cruel, I’m sure, but I looked at the situation logically. I did not yet know that – even far more than love or relationships – sex is not governed by any sort of logic or rationality.
I wanted more than one sexual partner, not out of greed, but out of curiosity. I could too easily imagine a future where curiosity – we could also call this lust – led me into the bed of another man. But I would not be careful, I thought, and it would end badly. Aaron could satisfy my curiosity with a very minimal chance of any harm coming from it. This is what I told myself.
And then there was always this: Going to San Francisco meant nothing unless we did actually sleep together. Otherwise, it was just a trip, a vacation.
The night before, Aaron had said, “Do you?” asking if I wanted to go into the bar.
“No,” I’d said. “You’ve got booze at your place, I’m sure.”
“I do.”
“Then we’re set.”
But by the time we were back to the apartment I was tired from the walking and cold and sleepy. I was no longer interested in alcohol, though my interest in Aaron hadn’t entirely diminished.
“Is it OK if I go to bed?” I had asked. “I’m so tired.”
“Yeah. Get some good sleep. We’ll have a grand day out tomorrow. Hopefully it will be as nice as today was.”
“I feel bad that you have to sleep on the couch,” I had said. “You know, you don’t have to.”
Aaron didn’t say anything and my words were just hanging in the air, heavy. “I mean,” I stuttered, “I don’t mind the couch. Really.”
But Aaron only smiled and said, “Sleep well, Jessica.”
#
We spent the rest of that day inside, watching movies, avoiding the rain. Aaron got out all the movies he owned with scenes set in San Francisco and he told me it would have to substitute for the real thing, at least until the rain stopped. “It never rains like this,” he said. He must have said it twenty times.
By evening Aaron and I had staged a dramatic rescue of tourists held hostage at Alcatraz, been entertained by a cross-dressing father, lived as an immigrant in Chinatown, raced across the Bay Bridge (going the wrong way, according to Aaron) to stop a wedding, and fought acrophobia all over the city of steep hills.
There were more, Aaron told me, especially romantic comedies. “Those all seem to take place either in New York or here,” he said. “But I only own a few.”
“What should we do for dinner?” I asked.
“Tonight seems like a good night for Italian,” Aaron said. “Let’s go to North Beach.”
“The beach?”
“No, it’s a neighborhood. Basically it’s Little Italy. Not far from here. All kinds of good restaurants.”
I looked toward the door. Outside the windows the rain was still coming down in steady sheets. “Do we have to walk?” I asked.
“I’ll call a cab,” Aaron said.
#
The cab driver drove us up and down the street where he said most of restaurants were twice. “I can’t even recommend any of them, really,” he said. “They’re all great. Best Eye-talian food in the world is right here in North Beach.”
“Better than in Eye-taly?” Aaron asked. I tried to stifle my giggle as I elbowed him in the ribs. The cabdriver didn’t seem to notice or care that Aaron was making fun.
“Just don’t go to the Stinking Rose,” the driver said. “Nothing against it, mind, though the garlic ice cream I could do without. But you can go to that restaurant in other cities. So many great ones here that are only here in San Francisco.”
“You pick,” I said to Aaron. I don’t even remember the name of the restaurant he had the taxi stop in front of. It had a blue awning and some tables by the window with chairs stacked on top of them. It was crowded, even on a rainy weeknight. But then every restaurant along the street had looked crowded. We ended up sitting at a table for four people by the window. Again, there were candles on the table.
We sat for awhile, not saying much. We were old friends and hadn’t seen each other for a long time, but it seemed like we had used up everything we had to talk about on our first day. Or maybe it was that we kept refusing to talk about the thing that was most on our minds.
“I was looking at the pictures on your bookshelf,” I said finally, to break the silence. It was like acknowledging a huge blue gorilla in the room by pointing out that I liked the smell of bananas. “Who’s the brunette?”
Was this a cruel question, asked out of jealousy and with little intent but to hurt him? It was. But I wanted to know.
Aaron put down his glass of wine and studied me. His eyes were cool. He had on a blue shirt and this made his eyes a soft aqua color. I didn’t doubt he knew what brunette I was referring to. He said, “You’ve changed, Jessica.”
Everyone always called me Jess, except Aaron, who always called me Jessica. There was something in the way he said the name that reminded me of a stern parent using their child’s full name. I felt stupid.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I said. “I’m sorry I asked.”
But then Aaron said, “She’s a friend.”
I felt reckless then. The brunette was not just a friend, the pictures made that obvious. I was hundreds of miles from home, having dinner with a man I intended to sleep who was not the man I was supposed to marry in a few months. I was reckless. “Are you dating her?”
“No.”
“Did you used to date her?”
“No,” he said.
“But you slept with her?” I asked. Aaron didn’t hesitate.
“Yes,” he said. I didn’t think he was lying.
I stopped and took a too-large sip of wine that left a burnt taste at the back of my throat. “Are you still sleeping with her?”
He said, “I’m sort of busy having plans with you the next few days.”
“That means you are,” I said.
“No. I haven’t seen her in some time.”
“What’s her name?”
Aaron nodded toward our waitress, a young, very Italian girl with easily an inch of dark roots above her dyed-blonde hair and extremely tight pants. “What do you want?” he asked. Aaron almost always ordered at restaurants. In college, I found it romantic. He gave our order to the waitress, who was flirting with him.
As she walked away, I said, “So tell me, would you sleep with her?”
“The waitress?” He looked back and said quickly, “No.”
“I bet you would if she came on to you,” I said. “What’s the brunette’s name?” I asked again.
“I don’t think I want you to know,” Aaron said. “There’s a look in your eye that I’m not used to, but it doesn’t seem very nice.”
And still I didn’t stop. “Oh, so you love her,” I said. He stared at me for almost a full minute without saying a thing. A minute can be an incredibly long time if its silent and someone is staring at you harshly. But when he did talk his entire tone had changed; he was conversational, joking, the way he’d always been when telling stories about his adventures with the opposite sex. He was smiling and seemed to have let his guard down.
“I was living in a romantic comedy for a while there,” he said. “Successful twenty-somethings in a San Francisco love triangle.”
Suddenly, I was again the girl I was in college, looking up to him, laughing with him and at him as he regaled me with a narrative.
Aaron said, “I dated her roommate. Just a few times, never seriously, didn’t seem like a big deal. But I met her when I’d go to the apartment and was smitten. They lived just down the street – I actually was asked out by her roommate at the Laundromat, which is just such a movie scene – so I saw them both around. We were all sort of friends, then the roommate stopped hanging out with us because she had a new boyfriend or something.”
“And you had a thing for this girl but you were just friends?”
“Don’t say it,” Aaron told me. “One night we ended up drunk together. You know how that ended up. For a while we didn’t talk much. Then she called me one night, drunk again, and I let her come over.”
“Not exactly a PG romantic comedy,” I said.
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Then we were friends again, but it was weird. If she called me at work and asked if I wanted to hang out we’d get together and we were just friends. I mean, just friends. If she’d call at night, it was for sex. And I always agreed because I just kept believing one day she’d have that, like, Vanessa Williams moment.”
I laughed. Too loudly really. I was on a second glass of wine and hadn’t eaten anything but a piece of bread. “You did not just say that,” I said. “And so, what? The roommate broke up with the new boyfriend and decided she was in love with you? You were being treated like trash and she’d be everything you wanted?”
“More or less.”
“Oh my god. Priceless. What happened?”
“She moved,” Aaron said quietly. “This is just before the summer. One day she calls and asks if I can help her pack a truck. She’s in Seattle now.” He was trying to stay upbeat, tell the funny story, but it was obvious the memory hurt him.
“Aaron!” I was practically shouting, because it was loud in the restaurant, but I had the vague sense that I was still louder than I needed to be. “How did you not get a threesome out of that situation? Tell me you didn’t think about it.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “You make no sense to me at all,” he said. “I think that’s why I always liked you.”
I went on. “At least tell me you slept with the roommate. That’s pretty hot, too. Sleeping with different girls living under the same roof. Come on?”
“Jessica,” he said and his tone had gone cool again. “Why are you doing this? Why this way?”
“Stop acting like you wouldn’t have loved it, too,” I said. “You make me pry all these stories out of you, but you love talking about what a pimp you are. You’ve probably slept with lots of girls who are roommates. Tell me. At school? Surely.”
“No,” he said.
“Tell me. Come on, this is like old times. I have to live vicariously through your sex life.”
“Why are you doing this?” he asked me again. But I wasn’t about to stop.
“All the girls in my dorm wanted you. You can tell me that you slept with them. It’s OK. God, I would have slept with them if I were you.”
Something happened to his face. I could see the change. I’d never seen him angry before but I knew it was anger on his face all the same. He said, “Jessica, stop it. I don’t know if you’re drunk or what, but you’re making an ass of yourself.”
Suddenly something very obvious, something I probably always knew but denied, became very clear.
I think I mumbled, “Oh.”
The waitress brought our food but was no longer flirting with Aaron. He thanked her quietly and told her we didn’t need anything else. She offered more wine and he just shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said to me. “I snapped.”
I tried to shrug. He’d not yelled or anything. And I wouldn’t have blamed him even if he’d done that.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I thought you knew. I just always assumed you knew.” The restaurant was warm with the heat from the kitchen and people and candles and wine. I felt chilled. I thought about the picture I had taken of Toya and Erika with Aaron, both planting kisses on his cheeks. I was embarrassed beyond words. Not mad at him so much as with myself. The meal was good, but I had no appetite.
It was still raining heavily outside. “I want to walk back,” I said.
“We’ll get wet,” Aaron told me.
“Yes. We will.”
Worse than the rain was the December cold. We turned a corner and were going straight into the rain and in a few seconds we were completely soaked. Then the rain was worse. It would have been an entirely miserable experience except that I found myself reveling in it. I was full up with righteous anger. I was drunk on indignation, it consumed me in a way that recalled lust. It warmed me and propelled each step.
I was sure that the weather was punishment for the man who lagged a half step behind me. He was the sort who would be more upset that I was wet and cold than he would be about his own soaked clothes, and my refusal to slow down or acknowledge him would hurt him. And how I wanted him to hurt and how I hoped to enjoy his pain.
When we reached the apartment I went straight inside and walked directly to the bedroom. Behind me, he said, “Jessica,” but nothing more. I closed the door behind me and lay down on his bed, still dripping wet.
I felt like I never had before. Vicious and bitter. And curious. I wanted to know more. When? How? For that matter specifically who? Had he had them together? If not, did they know? I wanted all the dirty details and I wanted to scream and fling the ugliness in Aaron’s face. I wanted him to relive it and feel sick, the way I felt sick myself. I felt the way I imagine a man does when he has been betrayed.
And slowly it drained away because the rest of the apartment was quiet and I realized I was soaked and quickly ruining his sheets, which would be my sheets that night. And I thought Aaron might not have sheets at all – he’d folded them up and brought them back into this room once he got up.
I found the blanket and pillows he’d stacked on a dresser and went out to give them to him. I also thought I could look down on him and let him see my virtue and kindness. I wanted him to tremble and be sorry and kneel down before me. I wanted him to beg for my forgiveness.
But he wasn’t on the couch. I found him in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink. He had a radio on, the volume turned down low enough that I couldn’t hear it in the bedroom. He was humming along until he saw me, and stopped.
I said, “I thought you might need these,” but my blood was boiling and I hated him again for seeming so at ease, for listening to music, for humming, when he should have been sick with himself. Except I didn’t hate him. The vicious feeling had left me and I felt only small and unimportant. I wanted to cry.
“Thank you,” he said.
I stood, fighting back tears.
“I’m sorry, Jessica,” he said. He had changed out of his wet clothes into what must have been an outfit for the gym, shorts and a UNLV t-shirt. His hair was still wet. He had pushed it back from his forehead and water was dripping down his back.
“Do you need to change clothes or anything in your room?” I said. I couldn’t say any more because I was afraid I would cry.
He shook his head to say no. “I’m sorry, Jessica,” he said again.
A few minutes earlier I would have screamed and demanded a recounting, a penance. But that had gone out of me and as miserable as I felt I couldn’t bring back that rage. I shook my head and went back into the bedroom without saying anything. I shut the door but left it unlocked.
I undressed slowly (watching the door, hoping it might open) and climbed into his bed. It still smelled like him. I was determined not to cry, even if it meant I didn’t sleep. I didn’t cry, and I didn’t sleep, either.
I don’t know how long I stayed lying in bed before I got up and went out to the living room. Aaron was on the couch watching a movie. Something in black and white.
“It’s late,” I said, and he nodded. I looked at him. He was a beautiful man to look at. “You don’t have to sleep on the couch tonight,” I said. “I’d rather you not.”
Silence.
“I’m not saying that,” I said. “Just, you have a big bed. It would be nice to have you close.”
Still nothing.
I knelt next to him. “Aaron, I’m sorry. I don’t even know what came over me.”
“Yeah,” he said. Then he sat up on the couch. “Yeah, OK.”
We slept back to back, awkwardly, but it was comforting to have him there.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Do you have enough room?” he asked.
“Sure. You?”
He said, “Sure,” and clearly didn’t mean it. But I didn’t probe because I liked the warmth of him next to me, the size and the weight of him. With him there I fell asleep quickly. Before I did, Aaron said, “It sounds like it stopped raining. Maybe tomorrow we can go out and be tourists.”
#
His snoring woke me up the next morning. I thought about smothering him with a pillow to stop the noise. I thought sleep would put down my anger, but the sound of rain outside revived it. I didn’t even know what I was angry at anymore. I thought, He’s a pig and I detest him. But I didn’t. I wanted to believe he was a pig and I wanted to hate him.
I put on my wet clothes from the night before, cold and clammy against my skin. Aaron was still snoring but her had rolled so that he was now in the middle of the bed as I stood over him trying to decide whether to leave a note. I decided that my suitcase still in the room would be a good indication that I hadn’t run away. And if he worried I thought maybe I would like that.
I went outside into the rain and began walking uphill. It was steep and I was quickly out of breath. It wasn’t raining as hard as it had been the night before, but I was still very wet. I reached the top of the hill where I could see down to the bottom again. It looked the same as where I had just come from. Rows upon rows of thin homes and apartments squeezed together, rising and falling with the ground below them. In addition to the rain, wispy fog swirled in the middle distance obscuring any view I might have had. I didn’t know what direction I was facing or what might be there but I was sure I could have seen something famous if it had been clear.
I thought about walking on until I saw something that I could identify as authentically San Francisco, but I was tired from climbing the hill and had little desire to climb another. Also it was cold and wet and people on the street looked at me strangely since I had no umbrella or coat or destination.
What would I say when I went back? I still wanted him to know I was hurt (though I couldn’t decide what exactly I was hurt about – his sleeping with my friends, or me not knowing, or that he hadn’t slept with me, too), but I wasn’t interested in screaming at him anymore. I wanted it resolved. We were together until Friday morning, so it needed to be resolved.
Aaron would be sleeping, I thought, when I got back, but I would wake him. He would be worried about me, my wet clothes, last night, everything. He would apologize and hold me in my dripping clothes. Maybe he would take them off and make love to me, I thought, trembling. I was embarrassed to be excited by the thought. Did it make me cheap to still want him? How cheap had I been for wanting him before, given my situation in the real world?
I turned and started back down the hill, but it was slick and I slipped, my ass splashing in a puddle of water. I realized how very alone I was, that if anything serious happened on this trip my life as I knew it would be entirely over. My decision to come had been based entirely on whether or not I should have sex with Aaron. I hadn’t considered any perils besides that one.
Sitting there, ass in puddle, rain still falling all around and on me, I felt wholly alone. Separate from reality. I had read books and seen movies where characters had relationships because even the worst relationship was better than being alone. Suddenly I understood that logic.
“Can I help you up?” a man going up the hill asked. He didn’t have an umbrella, he was holding a newspaper over his head.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I said, pushing myself up. I smiled at the man. “Don’t worry, I’m heading home,” I said.
“Strange day,” he said. “It never rains in California.” He winked at me. I had never heard the song, I didn’t get the joke.
“Right,” I said, and headed down the hill away from him. “Thanks,” I added over my shoulder. I almost tripped over something at my feet and looked down. There was a small dog, soaking wet, looking up at me. I don’t know dogs, but he couldn’t have looked more like a mutt with all his fur soaking and matted down, water dripping from his nose.
“Hi there, guy,” I said in the high, baby-talk voice that people use with animals. “Where are you supposed to be? Did you run away?”
The dog had no collar, and yipped at me. He didn’t seem angry, just nervous. Cold, maybe. “What are you doing?” I said. I reached out a hand to try to touch his head and he yipped again and bounced away. “Where are you going?” I said. I wanted to pick him up and take him somewhere warm, but he was already halfway up the next block, not looking back.
Aaron had either just woken up or I woke him when I went back into the bedroom. He blinked at me repeatedly. “What were you doing out there?” he asked. “God, is it still raining?”
I nodded. “Not as hard as last night.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yes,” I said. I sat down at the foot of the bed, by his feet. “I was just walking a little. I don’t know. It was stupid, but I’m OK.”
“You’re drenched,” he said. He took the blanket and wrapped it around me. “Is that what you wore last night?”
“I figured it was already wet,” I said. “I’m cold.”
And then, without much thinking about it, I stood up and lifted my shirt up and over my head. I was wearing a black bra with lace edges, one of my favorites. Then I peeled off my jeans, as well. They didn’t come off easily because they were pasted to my legs. I probably didn’t look very sexy with cold, white legs, but I was wearing matching underwear and wanted Aaron to understand.
Aaron wasn’t staring, though, he was looking either carefully at his lap or at the window. I climbed back into my side of the bed where it was warm under the covers.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I really am.”
I said, “I was all stupid. Don’t worry about it.” I stopped. Aaron was wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants but no shit. I put my hand on his chest and he flinched away from me, but when he realized I was trying to touch him, he didn’t resist.
“Aaron,” I said “Do you want me?”
I moved over so that I was next to him and then swung a leg over his body and kneeled, straddling him. I kept the covers wrapped around my shoulders.
“Jessica, what are you doing?” he said, sort of trailing off, unsure of what he wanted to say it seemed.
I leaned over him and kissed his forehead. His body was warm and he recoiled from me when my flesh pressed against his bare skin. “You’re cold,” he said. I wanted to kiss his mouth but I was kneeling over him at an awkward angle. I kissed his forehead again and then his temple. I tried to back up so I could kiss him on the mouth but my leg was caught in the blanket, and I couldn’t move.
Aaron kissed the underside of my chin and then tried to push himself up on his pillows to facilitate things. Instead the blanket moved and so did my leg very suddenly and I lost balance and fell onto his torso and head, hard. I tried to move and slipped and suddenly found myself on the floor next to the bed, legs still entwined in the blanket. We were both laughing and when I looked at him I laughed harder and when he saw me laugh harder he did, too.
When finally we calmed down from our giggles, he said, “Well,” and I said, “So,” and then we laughed again a little bit.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I looked at him because I wondered what he was sorry for.
“Last night still,” he said. “I’ll stop bring it up now. OK?”
I looked down at my almost naked body and said, “Are you sorry for this?”
He was looking at my body. Normally that makes me self-conscious and I want to cover up, but this was different. I felt special. I loved that he was admiring me. But then he looked up into my eyes again. “I find more often than not that things work out for the best,” he said, “even if it doesn’t seem just so at the time.”
#
That day we did interesting things of the sort that tourists do – museums, historic locations, areas that might have had a pretty view if it weren’t raining. I only vaguely remember those things.
What I remember is the city. We had lunch in Chinatown, which felt as secluded and foreign as anywhere I’d ever been, and afterwards we walked down a steep hill and across a street and suddenly found ourselves in a thriving heart of commerce, with more stores than the Strip back home in Las Vegas and a mall with curving escalators.
I saw busses and trains and cable cars. Lots of homeless people. Street vendors and mimes and performers. A man making detailed cityscape paintings with only spray paint.
The rain tapered off at one point and a hole opened in the clouds. The sun shone down and lit up the building downtown that looks like a pyramid and the white column of Coit Tower, high above the rest of the city. I remember seeing a concrete sculpture where, Aaron said, U2 had once played a free concert that essentially shut down half the city.
And everywhere there was water, grey and rippling from the rain. We didn’t go anywhere that didn’t have an unpleasant (but unique and sometimes almost charming) aroma in the air.
“Where’s the ocean?” I kept asking and Aaron would always seem to point to the only place where water was not in sight. I tried to keep track of the direction, but it seemed no two streets ran in the same direction. “I don’t think most of these homeless people are actually homeless,” I told Aaron. “I think they’re just lost.”
We went to a park that Aaron said had been built for the World’s Fair almost 90 years ago, but few of the building were left. I expected historical exhibits and black and white pictures – instead we went into a giant empty building and played with science-inspired toys. The place was crowded with kids and their families, but we were having more fun than any of them. We sat at one exhibit, facing each other with a mirror between us. We could adjust the light so that our faces combined. Aaron said, “Do you think this is what our kid would look like?”
We drove down Lombard, the crooked street, but the flower gardens that are so bursting with color in all the postcards were mostly dead. We ate chocolate sundaes from a soda fountain at Ghirardelli, even though it was almost dinner time. We saw sea lions off the side of a pier and Aaron took me out to the end and pointed out Alcatraz. “A helluva long way for Sean Connery to swim,” he said.
Because of the rain, we were pressed close together under an umbrella most of the day. As dusk came, the rain let off again, which was good because the temperature was dropping quickly. Aaron gave his umbrella to a homeless man who had smiled at us when we passed and not asked for anything. Even without the umbrella, he held me close, his arm wrapped around my shoulders. It was cold down by the water but the streets were still choked with people. It reminded me of home. “No one trying to hand you flyers for strippers here, though,” Aaron reminded me.
We had dinner at the Wharf again, at my request, in a restaurant with a large window in one wall that looked out on the slate-colored bay. There were so many ships tied up I couldn’t imagine how anyone ever got in or out. The masts swayed unevenly from side to side as the boats rocked in the water. “On a clear day I bet this place has a view of the bridge,” Aaron told me. But it was dark already and all I could see past the swaying masts was a wall of fog.
I said, “So today was fun.”
Aaron smiled. “Remember that day you made me walk all up and down the Strip and look at the tigers and the pirate battle and the water shows and everything else?”
“And the volcano,” I told him.
“The roller coasters.”
“Grand Canyon IMAX,” I said.
“The Stratosphere tower.”
“Did we go to the wax museum?”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, God. Yes. I’d blocked that.”
“And the animal magic show! That was that day, too.”
“You know what I remember?” Aaron said.
“My skirt blowing up around my thighs?” I said, laughing. “You pig.”
Aaron was laughing, too. “Well, yes, I remember that,” he said. “But no. I remember we were so tired and so drunk that you crashed at my apartment.” His tone had changed; he wasn’t just reciting a funny story any more, he was remembering something. “We woke up the next morning and we were so hungover.”
“You made coffee,” I said. “I completely forgot I stayed with you. God, we were trashed.”
“I made coffee and while I was in the kitchen you fell back asleep. I came back in and it was like you had started to push back the covers to get up and then just given up. So when the coffee was finished I brought it back in there and put it on the nightstand and sat next to you. Right then you were just more beautiful than I’d ever seen you, than I’d ever seen anyone. And it was so easy for me to imagine that we were together, that you waking up in my bed was an everyday thing.”
I wanted to say something but I had no idea what. I didn’t know what he was getting at or if he was trying to say anything. Maybe he was just suddenly having a memory.
“Anyway,” was all Aaron said, though. I kept staring at him, waiting for more. In the corner of my eye the boats rocked as steadily as ever. I was used to calmer waters and kept expecting that the water would calm and the masts would steady. “So today made me think of that, because it was thinking that we might have a day like today that made me want to invite you,” Aaron finally said.
I said, “Oh boy.”
He said, “I really want you to stay through New Years.”
I looked at Aaron. Did I think about my fiancé? I did. I thought about what excuse I could give him. I said, “I’ll stay.”
#
From the low ground at the wharf, the great city rises above with hills and buildings that seem impossibly tall from water level. At night the fog comes in and the city illuminates it from below, a bright grey ceiling that makes it seem like night has never come.
The streets that in the daytime are choked with busses and cable cars and taxis careening in and out of tiny openings seem empty and small and the cabs now drive fast, changing lanes only from boredom. The fog either deadens all the noise (or maybe the hills do this) or keeps everyone quiet. Chinatown is boarded up and empty, as if abandoned, but a few streets over North Beach has come to life and there are lights in every storefront, and every restaurant has a line of people outside waiting for a table, examining the menus.
San Francisco has no bright center, no West End. Even the theatre district seems sleepy and quaint on nights when the fog is thick. San Francisco has no Times Square, no neon but for the sign on the Fog City Diner.
It is not a city known for nightlife, though nighttime is when I learned to love it.
I took all this in without thinking it, without being aware at all, as our cab took a roller coaster route back to the apartment, as Aaron kissed me in the back seat, both of us giggling, our breath hot and humid making our own fog on the window he had me pressed up against, his hands still kept carefully to himself, mine clenching his shirt, pulling him closer, yes, ever deeper into my mouth.
#
But, in the bedroom, the red light on my cell phone was impossible to miss. I would have gladly ignored it, but Aaron didn’t.
“Is that a message from him?” he asked.
I felt suddenly defensive. “His name is Paul,” I said.
“Is it?”
“I don’t even want to look,” I said. “Come kiss me.”
Aaron stood in place, a few feet away. He could see me and the phone behind me without having to redirect his gaze at all.
“You want me to leave him, don’t you?”
Nothing.
“I came here to be with you, Aaron. I want to be with you. Even now.”
Silence.
“Why isn’t that enough for you?”
#
I talked to Paul once or twice every day on the trip, but the conversations were barely worth mentioning. I lied, said things about work. I complained about the rain and that was not a lie. I said I couldn’t wait to come home and that I loved him. Only one was a lie.
#
“Talk to me, dammit.” I was pleading. “I’m right here, in your fucking bedroom. I’m dying for you. I’m standing right here. What more do you need?”
“Look at your hand,” Aaron said.
“What?” But I help up my right in front of my face anyway.
“The other one,” he said. I held up my left hand. “On your fourth finger you have a tan line, because normally you wear a ring on that finger. When I picked you up at the airport you were still wearing the ring. It was all I could look at. Then it disappeared and I don’t know what you did with it and I don’t care, and really it doesn’t matter because I can still see that tan line on your finger, or that message light blinking on your phone. There’s always going to be something to remind me.”
I lowered my hand and instinctively covered it with my right. I had an urge to defend myself but no idea what to say – he was right. My position was indefensible. And yet I still wanted him. I felt chastised, but still imagined Aaron would take me in his arms and forgive me with kisses.
He said, “I didn’t ask you to come out here and spend a week with me because I want to break up your wedding. I really didn’t.”
“Is that why you asked me to stay for New Years?” I asked.
He shrugged, which meant nothing to me. “I don’t really know what I was thinking when I asked you to fly out here,” he said. “It really wasn’t like I wanted you to come out here and have an affair with me for a week. I’m not that guy. I think part of me just kept wanting to believe it could be like it was in college.”
“Except with sex, right?” I said.
He shrugged again. “But it’s not like that and I can’t do this, Jessica. I can’t. I want to. I’m sorry. But I can’t do that to him and, to be more honest about it, I can’t do it to myself.”
This speech, of course, made me want him more. I was paralyzed.
“If we were to do what I want to right now, I don’t think I could ever let you leave,” he said. “Not on Friday. Not ever after that It used to be that I didn’t want to fuck up our friendship, but it’s not even that anymore. When you go away after this week I’ll be miserable and I know it. I’m already dreading it. But I think if we don’t sleep together, maybe I’ll be slightly less miserable.”
I think if I could have spoken, I would have told him not to worry. I would have told him that I would never leave. But I was speechless. I didn’t say anything. I think he thought maybe I was mad at him for some reason. He went out to the living room and shut the door behind him so I was alone in his bedroom.
Later, I called Paul. He sounded distracted, but that was fine with me, it was easier to be short and say little. I didn’t say anything about not coming home until after New Year’s, though I had meant it when I told Aaron I would stay. But maybe those plans were off now. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if I wanted to stay or to go home. And I didn’t know if it was up to me anyway.
#
In the middle of the night, a scratching sound at the window woke me. I waited a few minutes and heard it again, the scratching, and then a loud thump. Then the thump again.
I hopped over to the door and called out for Aaron.
“There’s a noise,” I said.
“Outside?”
“By the window.”
He looked around and took a large rock bookend from the bookcase. He walked quietly over and pushed the blinds away from the window.
He shrugged. “I’ll check outside,” he said. I followed him out of the bedroom, but stayed by the couch as he went out the front door. He was gone about a minute, and came back laughing, wet from the rain. “Part of the trim by the window broke,” he said. “It was creeping me out because it was above my head and I could hear it but couldn’t tell what it was. But I pulled it off. It should be quiet now.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Aren’t you just the big, strong man?” In truth it had turned me on, watching him go out into the night, for my safety and peace of mind.
“It was kind of fun,” he said.
#
The sun was out when we woke up on Thursday. I asked to go to the beach. Aaron drove.
It was windy and cold despite the reemergence of the sun. I didn’t care. I took off my shoes and walked barefoot in the sand. A few times I walked down close enough to let a wave creep over my feet. The water was incredibly cold and my feet soon were numb.
We walked close to each other but we didn’t hold hands and we didn’t talk. I realized it was the first time I had been on a beach since Paul had proposed to me, almost a year earlier. That was much further south – in Los Angeles – and the sand had been hot that day, the sea refreshingly cool. I had cried when he got on his knee and then laughed when a large wave rolled in and almost knocked him over, soaking him from the waist down.
I’d seen movies and TV shows filmed on this beach, and I understood why. I felt like I was in a movie. There were men and women running, some of them with dogs. A long way down to the south I could see a group of people with a kite. I wanted it to be fun and a little romantic that we were on the beach. I wanted to run into the water and laugh. But the water was cold.
“Is it ever warm enough here to go swimming?” I asked.
“Not really, but some people do,” Aaron said.
I didn’t like the beach. It was long but very narrow and instead of blending gracefully into land it ended suddenly and rocky cliffs rose up and above them all I could see were some trees and the sky. I wanted to be able to see the city, but I remember Aaron had told me that view was hard to come by.
“It’s clear today,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Will you take me to the other side of the bridge?” I asked. “I want to see the postcard view.”
#
We drove across the bridge with the windows rolled down. “I never realized it’s not just flat,” I said. “It’s like a hill.”
Aaron didn’t say anything. I took to watching the pedestrians, the families taking pictures, the runners who wove in and out of everyone else, breath puffing out like tiny clouds in front of them.
“How do they keep people from jumping over the side?” I asked. It didn’t look like it would be very difficult to do if you were determined, or if you were stupid and reckless. I thought maybe there was a net.
“Nothing, really. Lots of people do every year.”
“And they don’t do anything to stop it?”
“Well, it’s not like they don’t do anything,” Aaron said and he stopped a moment with his mouth open. Then he sighed. “I mean, I think sometimes people will just do what they do. Sometimes people do stupid things. But how can you stop them?”
I watched a young man lean over the railing and wave his arms as if flailing, as if falling. “Someone should try,” I said.
#
But there was no postcard view. And it wasn’t because fog obscured the buildings, it was just that those pictures are a camera trick. Some kinds of lens, I don’t know, something. Everything seems close and immediate and huge. And in postcards that seems right because San Francisco, when you’re within it, feels every bit as huge as it does small.
The hills go on forever – you reach the top of one only to find more. The buildings go up forever above you. Everywhere you stand it seems there is a higher point, a further point, something you haven’t reached, or can’t reach, or won’t.
But from the parking lot on the edge of the cliffs high above the cold waters of the Pacific, San Francisco looked small, distant beyond the bridge, and the water, and the cliffs, and the trees. “It seems so far away,” I said.
“To me it’s like looking at a different planet from far away. You know it’s big but it just seems so small and unimportant. And I think that’s a lie, like I said before. It’s not small or insignificant. It’s a great city. But it’s not meant to be taken in all at once. Even now, there’s so much we can’t see.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You were right.” Aaron nodded. But I didn’t want him to be right, or I wasn’t willing to let him assume authority on more than just this small point about the city. Maybe that went through my head or maybe it didn’t. I turned and kissed him. He backed away quickly, stumbling a little from his surprise. The viewing area was not crowded but there were a number of people who could see us there. I wrapped my arms around him so he could move away again and kissed him, hard and on the mouth and when he opened his mouth I pushed my tongue against his, and bit it gently before letting him go.
I said quietly, “I still want you.”
“I still want to give you what you want,” Aaron said. “But what we want is different.”
“What’s this? More poetry?”
“Between the horses of love and lust we are trampled underfoot,” he said.
“I know that’s poetry. Or, like, a song. I’ve heard that before. Aaron, damn it.” I was shaking, both with frustration and the lingering desire from the kiss. Things were blurry. I collapsed against him and Aaron held me up. “Take me home,” I said.
Aaron looked at me. “You know, no matter what, I’m still glad you came,” he said.
#
Dusk was coming by the time we got back. We parked by Aaron’s apartment, but then walked to find food. “Clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl,” he said. “You haven’t been to San Francisco if you don’t eat this meal.” The soup was warm and good and I was hungry. I ate it all and all of the bread bowl, tearing it into large chunks and chewing hungrily. It was warm, and I felt better.
Out on the street I felt bold and powerful. Reckless, too, the way I did at the Italian restaurant. But I hadn’t learned my lesson from that. This story is not about an epiphany.
“I don’t want to go home,” I said. “There have to be places to go in this city. Bars. Clubs. Something.”
“Loud or low key?” he asked.
“Loud.”
And the place he took me to was definitely that. We stood out front of it and between the music and the conversations pulsing out from within, I could already barely hear him.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“It’s the Perpetual Carnival.”
“Is that its name?”
“It is what it is,” Aaron said.
“I like it,” I told him.
We sat at a small, round table at the edge of the room and ordered drinks. Most of the floor was packed with people standing, some seemed to almost be dancing. I wondered if I could get Aaron drunk and take advantage of him. I wondered if it was possible to do that, to take advantage of a man. When the waitress brought our drinks I told her to bring a second round, as well. And when she brought that I asked for a third.
“Someone is feeling frisky,” Aaron said. He had to shout over the noise.
I had a Cape Cod, but it was short on vodka. I drank it quickly and winked at Aaron. I stood up too quickly and my head was swimming for a second. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be back.” I took a step toward the bathroom and then looked back at Aaron. “You could stand up, you know? Mingle. Have a time.” Aaron raised his glass to me and took a sip. He was drinking a black and tan.
But when I came back, Aaron wasn’t at the table anymore. I went to the bar and ordered a Fat Tire. A tall man to my right asked if he could pick it up for me and I let him. I saw Aaron in the midst of the crowd talking to a heavy-set man. The tall man who bought my beer asked if I was with anyone. I told him I was not. I took his hand and wandered into the crowd.
“Are you from here?” I asked the tall man.
“I’ve lived here a year. I grew up in L.A.,” he said. “What about you?”
“I’m not from here,” I said. It was loud, so we were standing very close to talk. He smelled like sweat and beer and something else I couldn’t place.
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Call me Erin,” I told him. “That’s not my name, but you can call me Erin. OK? And I’ll call you … something. I don’t know. What should I call you?”
“I’m Paul,” he said. I just smiled, wondering if that was really his name. “What am I getting myself into?” he asked. And then added, “Erin?”
I put my hand against the back of the tall man’s neck and pulled him into me and made him kiss me. He tasted like garlic, that was the scent I hadn’t placed before, and like beer. This was not good and his kissing was uncertain, imperfect, but I kept kissing him anyway.
Then there was a hand on my shoulder, a strong hand, pulling me away. “What?” the tall man said, off balance and out of sorts.
“No hard feelings,” Aaron said behind me. He was talking to the tall man I had been kissing. “But she’s engaged.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No hard feelings,” Aaron said again, but that was not the case for me. He held me by the wrist, not gently, and led me to the back of the bar, by the table we had sat at when we came in. He stood me against the wall and raised his hand when he let go of my arm so that I thought, just for a second, he might hit me. Was I scared? I was scared of his anger, but not violence. I was aroused by his command, but still angry with him.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked.
I looked at the ground. I was drunk and he probably knew it.
“Jessica?”
“What does it matter?” I said. “I kissed you, too. You want me to leave him anyway, don’t you?”
“Oh, Goddamn it,” Aaron said. “Goddamn you.”
I tried to look at him but couldn’t bring myself to raise my eyes above his chin. He hadn’t shaved that morning and his chin looked rough. “I just want you to want me,” I said.
“We talked about this last night,” he said.
“Don’t say that! This doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it? This place is the lie. What you see when you go across the bridge is real. It’s small. It’s nothing. It’s only when you’re here that you’re tricked into believing it’s more than that. It doesn’t matter.”
“You’re full of shit,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I said. “You knew I was engaged before I came. You said you want to make me happy. You think sleeping in the room is the way to do that?”
Aaron said nothing. I looked up at him and saw anger in his eyes.
Again I said, “Fuck you.”
He kissed me, not just with his mouth. His entire body pressed me against the brick wall so hard that it hurt. The stubble on his chin scraped raw against my face. I dropped the half-full bottle of beer I’d been holding in my left hand and it shattered at our feet, beer and glass spraying up and out, onto our shoes and our pants. He didn’t stop kissing me. He backed away slightly so I wasn’t flush against the wall and put his arms around me.
“What about?” I gasped, but he cut me off.
“Shut the fuck up and let me kiss you,” he said. He put his hands on my ass and lifted me slightly so our mouths were level. He was hard and hot against me. I was grinding back against him, pressing with my hips and enjoying the response. I wished I was wearing a skirt instead of jeans, I wanted him so badly.
His mouth consumed mine. He tasted good. He was a better kisser than anyone I had ever known. Finally, I was able to gasp out a few more words. “Take me home,” I said.
#
It was not a short walk and it was cold outside. The fog was late, but on its way. My shoes were wet with beer. We all but ran the first block and then stopped at the corner and kissed again. I rubbed my hand against him. He bit my lower lip.
Then it was uphill and we slowed down from the effort. We were drunk and getting tired. The hill was steep. Aaron said. “Do you have?” and he trailed off.
I said I didn’t. “You don’t either?” I asked.
He shook his head and slowed down and finally stopped. I was glad. I was tired. “Well,” Aaron said.
“Well,” I said.
“Maybe this is a sign.”
“Right,” I laughed. “A pretty obvious one. Wouldn’t that be a scandal? I go away on a business trip and come back pregnant. That’d be a story.”
“Some things aren’t meant to be,” he said. I looked at him and his eyes were sad.
#
He kept a hold of my hand the rest of the way home. When we got to his door, he let my hand go, and fished in his pocket for his keys. I kissed him. “Forget about what you think is meant to be,” I said, as he tried and failed to fit the key in the lock.
I said, “I’m already here. What does that tell you about what’s meant to be?” He finally managed the lock and let us into the apartment. I put a hand on his chest and pushed him over to the couch. I had him sit down and then I straddled him, a knee of either side of each of his legs. I kissed him more and put my hands in his hair. I had never understood why mean liked to run their hands through my hair when kissing me, in fact it annoyed me, but then finally I understood the urge.
“Jessica,” Aaron said.
“I’m here,” I said again. “My fiancé thinks I’m in a hotel, on a business trip, with boring business people. But instead I’m in this apartment, sitting on top of you, and admiring this.” I ground my hips against his erection. “So whether you undress me and have your way with me like I want you to or not, I’ve already been pretty massively unfaithful. Either way, he’s never going to know anything about this at all. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to be here. Why don’t you make it worth my while?”
Aaron put his hand on the back of my head and pulled me into him and kissed me. I started to unbutton his shirt. That’s when we heard the noise at the door. It was like a scratching noise, but also an occasional thumping noise, like something hitting the door. Loud enough that both of knew we couldn’t ignore it.
“Tell them to go far, far away and in a hurry,” I said, letting Aaron stand up.
But when he opened the door, the only thing there was the dog I had seen in the rain a few mornings earlier. Its fur was still wet and it looked cold. It was sitting peacefully, leaving no explanation of what had caused the scratching or thumping noises at the door.
I explained to Aaron how I had seen the dog before but it had run away. Aaron opened the door and tried to get the dog to come inside. The dog was nervous, but couldn’t resist the warmth inside. Aaron got a towel and tried to dry the dog’s fur and the dog yipped at him, but then wouldn’t stop following him around.
“Looks like I made a new friend,” he said. We put out water for the dog but Aaron had nothing for it to eat. “I should run out and get some food,” he said. He gave me a sheepish look. He shrugged.
“You’re always finding a good excuse, aren’t you?” I said, but I wasn’t angry. The moment had passed, as it always seemed to do between us.
“There’s a little shop just at the corner that should have something.”
“Just getting dog food?” I asked. He winked and went out.
I took a hot shower and wrapped myself in Aaron’s robe when I got out. I sat on the couch in the living room and watched TV with the little dog on the cushion next to me. I petted its damp fur and smiled at it. It felt good to take care of something, to be even in a small way responsible for another creature.
Aaron would come home with dog food and nothing else. He would look at me in his robe with a yearning, pained look in his eyes. But he would sleep on the couch again. It was like I could see all this before it happened. It was like I knew my future all right then.
I wouldn’t stay for New Year’s. Aaron would say goodbye to me at the airport with a hug, but he wouldn’t kiss me.
I would send him an invitation to the wedding, and he would decline, but send a card. I would not hear from him again after that, but I would think of him every day without fail. I would always miss him, probably. I would always wonder. I would find an excuse or a better idea every time my husband would suggest a trip to northern California. I would not come back to San Francisco. Over time, I surely would think of him less. I would love my family and never regret. It was a simple, good life, I thought, and I thought it would be mine.
-30-
posted by Matthew at 11:12 PM
