“Becca? Is that you? Wake me? It’s eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning. Honey, I’m at work. Where are you? You sound a little distant.”
“Maui. We arrived a few days ago.”
“Uh huh. Well, it figures. I’m thinking about whether to eat the other half of my onion bagel and you’re in paradise wondering what time it is in the rest of the world. Okay, this is fair.”
“I need to talk. Do you have a few minutes.”
“What did Alan do now?”
‘Nothing. Nothing. It’s been great here. It’s really lovely.”
“I’ll bet it is.”
“Stop. I need your help. I’ve decided I can’t do this anymore.”
“Again? Again, your leaving Alan? We’re not doing this again. Anyway, I’m not doing it.”
“I mean it’s clear to me, now. I have to break away. It’s only right.”
“Well, at least you didn’t say it.”
“Say what, Abby?”
“That he’s never going to leave…”
“Oh, no. Leave Sheila? No, never. Alan never said he was going to leave Sheila, never even hinted at it. ‘Whether she’s bawling her eyes out or cussing me out, she’s the one that’ll be picking out my last suit,’ he always says.”
“How magnanimous of him.”
“That’s not it. It’s me. I mean what is this all about?”
“Becca, I think it’s pretty clear. By the way, how did he wangle a trip to Maui and keep it from Sheila?”
“Oh, we’re on a work junket. I mean he is. The firm flew out the senior execs. A retreat, you know.”
“Not really, but it must be nice.”
“Well, actually, we had to fly out separately. But I didn’t mind. Fact is, he’s the one who hates to fly. White knuckles, then he pops up as soon as he hits a little turbulence. Poor baby.”
“So, you want to leave because he’s a poor flyer?”
“Abby, you’re not paying attention. It’s me. It’s all this. I’m just not growing, and this is going nowhere.”
“It got you to Maui.”
“Look, this is all very nice. I mean the place is gorgeous. The hotel is on the beach and the halls are open air and they have these long white curtains that drift down from a twenty-foot-high ceiling and waft beautifully in the ocean breezes. I mean it’s delightful. And I mean these people really cater to your every whim. Why the other night at dinner— the restaurant is outdoors, of course, and overlooks the beach and ocean — the chef came out to greet us, all because Alan asked about how the gluten-free dishes were prepared. He’s got that bad allergy, you know.”
“What’s your point here?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry. Well, I can’t do it anymore. I mean it’s not right. I mean it’s not going anywhere and, and I feel bad about Robby.”
“Why do you feel bad about your son? Is he suffering? He’s in school up in Massachusetts, right?”
“Yes. It’s wonderful for him. You know that I could never afford to send him there.”
“I know. So, this is a good thing. No?”
“Well, yes and no. I mean I love that Robby’s there. I mean you should see the student roster. The thing reads like the Mayflower manifest.”
“I’m still waiting for the bad.”
“The bad is that Alan is paying Robby’s first year’s tuition. God, I love him for it. But it’s just not right.”
“In whose world is it not right, Becca?”
“My world. I mean it’s not his kid.”
“Did you twist his arm? Did you have him in a chokehold when you asked for the tuition money?”
“No, he wanted to. Said it wasn’t a big deal.”
“So, when are you going to tell him?”
“Sometime today. But definitely after breakfast. You know, the breakfast’s here are to die for. The staff sets a table on the veranda, very secluded from the other guests, but with a view of the water. And I have to tell you, my omelet has been scrumptious. You know me and breakfast. And it comes with berries. Mmmm, and they warm the berries. You know, on second thought, maybe I won’t say anything until tonight. We’re supposed to go back to Molokini. That’s an island just off the coast where the whales migrate to this time of year. We took a boat ride yesterday — very touristy — and we saw a whale breach the water. It was the coolest thing. So, Alan booked us again for today. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
“Has the sex been as good as the food or the whales?”
“You know the story. The same. It isn’t bad. It’s not like he’s really gross to touch or anything. And he doesn’t screw like an old man. At least not yet. And you know, that’s not everything.”
“Maybe to you.”
“No, I mean I’ve learned a lot. He’s really smart. We even have discussions about art. Two weeks ago, we spent three hours at the Whitney. We saw the Raffensberg exhibit.”
“Rauschenberg.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Rauschenberg. Wasn’t that nice of him to take the time to do that?”
“Isn’t that when he jumped you in the stairwell.”
“You’re always going down that road. He just likes the way I look, and sometimes, well, he can’t help himself, especially when I’m in a bikini. You know, he told me to get a tan. But not a conspicuous one. Nothing dermatologically irresponsible, he said. Isn’t that a nice way to phrase things?”
“Beautiful.”
“Oh, he really means to look out for me. I mean, I know he wants me to look good. You know I shave off half a dozen years when we’re with his friends. I’m still sticking with twenty-nine. Do you think I can still get away with it?”
“Well, you’ve been with him over a year. Don’t you think you might turn that calendar page?”
“I know. I know. This won’t last anyway. I was thinking I could get something else?”
“Do you mean a job?”
“I could go back to modeling. Not the high fashion stuff. No, I mean the commercial jobs. Something like, you know, the attractive mom holding a new vacuum cleaner. Or maybe become a photographer.”
“And send Robby to private school?”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m good around cameras.”
“Becca, honey, that’s not what you’re good at.”
“Well, I don’t care. My mind is made up. Uh, I think he’s getting up. I have to go. Wish me luck.”
“Sure. Go. Have a nice breakfast. And if you’re wondering, I’ve decided to go for it, too.”
“Go for what?”
“The other half of my bagel.”
“Oh.”
“By the way, how does your son like the school? Didn’t he begin classes last week?”
“Oh, Robby, he loves it. He told me he’s really looking forward to the next four years.”
On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Alma and Joel, students at Northeastern University and Boston College, respectively— undergraduate and graduate, respectively — were both aboard Amtrak on their way to Philadelphia and Baltimore, respectively, to spend the holiday with their respective families when three passenger cars derailed on the notoriously perilous curve at Frankford Junction killing two passengers and injuring fifty-one; yet, despite being in the second of the three cars, Alma and Joel suffered only minor scrapes so that he was able to carry injured people out of the overturned car and she to tend to them, a joint effort which made a bond that two years later eventuated in their marrying one another.
Alma’s pregnancy was unplanned, a surprise, and turned out to be difficult, requiring an emergency Caesarian section with complications that meant Alma and Joel’s son would only have a brother if they adopted, which, after many discussions, lengthy advice from their parents, and much wavering, they did.
The boys were of an age, got on well, were loved equally by their parents, lived placidly in their leafy suburb until puberty when, almost overnight, one turned morose, hostile, secretive, alienated, unhygienic, isolated, pierced, impolite, dressing only in black jeans and black shirts so that, though his classmates were terrified, they weren’t surprised when one morning in home room he lifted from his backpack a Kabar hunting knife he’d bought online and started swearing at and trying to slash those of his classmates who didn’t flee at once, and he was still doing this when the School Security Officer Sal Accetta burst in and shot him in the chest, a fatal shot which the marriage of Alma and Joel also did not survive, and which so traumatized Officer Accetta that four months later he was admitted to the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge as a long-term resident, the ferocious cost of which was paid by the affluent suburb’s grudgingly grateful taxpayers augmented by a co-response grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Department of Mental Health.
Like Alma and Joel, Officer Accetta and his wife Jeanne had two children and lost one when his daughter Giulia died at the age of three of an untreatable congenital heart defect, a fate her parents had been assured would come inevitably and soon, though the doctors couldn’t say exactly when, so they had time to steel themselves, get ready to face the blow together, also to prepare Guila’s big brother David who, when he had grown up into a kind, intelligent, and imposing six-foot-three law student regularly drove himself and his mother from Boston to Stockbridge and back every weekend to visit his father, in the course of which visits David fell in love with Belinda Doherty, an attractive young nurse who, over time, and after many strolls through the Center’s grounds, reciprocated so that, in due course, they were wed at Saint Mark’s, her family’s church in Pittsfield.
Belinda and David had three children, all robust in body and mind, the oldest named Salvatore after David’s father and who from an early age was obsessed by aviation so that when he enrolled in Boston University he also signed up for Air Force ROTC, served the required four years, re-upped for another four, then left the service to become a pilot with Delta Airlines and was at the controls on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles when his plane lost one engine over Kansas and the landing gear jammed so that he had to pull off a nearly miraculous belly landing at Garden City Regional Airport, saving all aboard, including the beautiful and brilliant classical scholar Ophelia Langhorne whom I met at a professional conference three years later and married last June.
I was in the backseat with Billy. The first time I’d ever been there with a boy. Fay and Amber had talked about what it was like, but the whole thing seemed gross. I couldn’t imagine doing what they were talking about.
I’d met Billy through tennis. We were both on our varsity teams and had entered some mixed doubles tournaments together. He was nice as boys go, and things were becoming serious.
We were making out when he tried to take it further.
“I’m not ready for that,” I said.
“But don’t you love me?”
“Of course. Just… not that. Not yet.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got a better idea.”
He reached down onto the car’s floor and then unexpectedly held up his Babolat Pure Drive tennis racket.
“You’re going to like this,” he said, nodding toward the racket, then beginning to rub it gently across my skin.
“What are you doing?” I asked, thinking it ridiculous.
“Just relax. trust me.”
He was right. I felt something I’d never felt before. The grommets were cool and firm. The graphite frame moved gently against my collarbone.
“Oh my god,” I whispered, not believing how good it felt.
The strings brushed against my shoulder— slow, deliberate. The sensation was unlike anything I’d ever felt. The tension in the strings gave just enough, drawing a long, silent line across my skin like a bow over a cello.
My breath caught.
He moved the racket down, tracing the angle of my shoulder blade. I felt lit from within. Glowing, being worshipped in the language of pressure points and carbon fiber.
I lost track of time — we could’ve been there an hour — when I noticed condensation on the inside of the car windows, saw that the moon had shifted.
And then I whispered, “Let me do it to you.”
He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Come on,” I said, gently taking the racket. “Just close your eyes.”
I brought the racket to his shoulder. The moment the strings touched his skin, he shuddered.
“Wow, that feels so good,” he said.
We kept trading positions — me rubbing him with the Babolat Pure Drive, him rubbing me, us rubbing ourselves. It was utterly decadent. And fantastic.
At one point, he said, “Let me do your elbow.”
It was pure bliss. My elbow had never been touched like that before.
Suddenly, he stopped.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, beginning to unbuckle his belt.
“Whoa! I thought we agreed —”
“No, trust me,” he said, reaching into his shorts.
I couldn’t believe it. Staring me in the face was the biggest can of tennis balls I had ever seen. I’d heard rumors about cans with four balls — but this one had five! And they were Dunlop Fort Tournaments — the most expensive balls on the planet.
“I’m speechless,” I said.
“Why have three when you can have five? Am I right?” Then he said with a wink, “Now for the open.”
He pulled back the tab and popped the lid.
Pffft!
I can’t describe the sensation I felt in that moment. It eclipsed all prior openings. Ripples of pleasure shot through me when the vacuum seal was released and the smell of the rubber intoxicated me. I was in heaven.
And then, just as quickly, it was gone.
“Do you have another can?” I asked desperately.
He laughed.
“A D’Antonio always comes prepared,” he said, reaching into his shorts again and pulling out a second five-ball can.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Do it!” I nearly screamed.
Pffft!
The waves of pleasure were even more intense this time.
“Do you have another one?” I pleaded.
He laughed again.
“Baby, I can only fit so much in my shorts.”
I was on the verge of something, and I wasn’t about to be denied.
“Make the sound with your mouth.”
“Huh? What?”
“The sound… you know. Of the balls opening.”
“Really?”
“Do it!”
He nodded and gave it his best shot.
“Pffft!”
“No, that’s too low in pitch.”
“Pffft?”
“A little higher!”
“Pffft?”
“Almost there!”
“Pffft! Pffft! Pffft! Pffft!”
That did it. For a moment, I was outside my body, floating in space. I may have blacked out — the sensations were that powerful.
Afterwards, he kept making the sound over and over, but it became annoying.
“Baby, just cuddle me,” I said.
I wish I could tell you that every time was like that. It wasn’t. We’d caught lightning in a bottle.
And I wish I could tell you we lasted longer together, but he committed a serious double fault when he cheated on me with Amber.
“He pulled out his tennis racket and tried to rub it on me,” she said. “What a weirdo.”
