“Do you want me to help carry them?” I ask when his arms are full.
He shakes his head. “I can do it.”
As we walk toward the counter, a coffee table book of photos captures my attention—it’s a book full of images of kissing. I snag it, figuring maybe Jeremy was right. Maybe I need to do the opposite of Crushed and write love songs. I buy the books and settle into the bookstore’s café with my son, where he reads about cartoon kids and I ogle kissing pics, respectively.
“Daddy!”
Ethan drops his books and rushes over to Aidan, who’s walking toward us in the café.
It’s such a universal response—the pure joy of the “Daddy!” reaction most kids exhibit when Dad comes home at the end of the day. Or when they are traded off to Daddy for the next few days, as the case may be.
Aidan picks him up and hugs him. “Hey there, little bud. How was school? But more important, what the heck has Captain Underpants been up to?”
Ethan launches into an explanation of the hero’s latest escapades as Aidan listens thoughtfully, nods at times, and widens his eyes to show his enthusiasm.
“I can not wait for you to read some of these stories to me.” Then he claps Ethan on the back and tells him to pop back into the chair for a few minutes. “I need to talk to your mom.” Then he pulls me aside.
“Hey, Jane,” Aidan says. He’s wearing a green V-neck sweater with a white T-shirt underneath, black slacks, and black shoes. Simple but classy. I swear he’s the most stylish high school history teacher in Manhattan. He teaches now at a progressive private high school on the Upper West Side called The Little Blue School.
“Hello, Aidan.”
“How’s everything going post-Grammy? Are you still on cloud nine?” He reaches out to give me a hug. I barely respond, standing there stiffly. I know it’s a friendly hug, but any contact from him is weird. It reminds me of how every bit of contact between us was a one-way street. He never wanted me like I wanted him.
“Yeah, everything is great.”
“That’s awesome. I’m so proud of you,” he says with a bright smile. Then he turns more serious. “So I left you a message, but you’re probably overwhelmed.”
“I received the message. And the e-mail too.”
“Oh. I didn’t hear back from you.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, looking down at the off-white tiled floor in the café.
“So what do you think?”
I shrug and look away. Because if I look at him, I will feel everything again. Every single awful thing I felt the night a year ago when I learned he needed a f**king support group.
I’d been playing poker at Kelly’s apartment, our monthly poker night with our mom friends. We were a competitive crew. The regulars were Kelly and Natalie, and another mom friend and Gretchen. We usually assembled at Kelly’s place, a truly spacious two-bedroom on the Upper East Side. Kelly’s husband is a top research analyst at a bank, so they both can pull. He was out that night and their daughter, Sophie, was sound asleep in her Pottery Barn pink-and-green bedroom.
We’d all had a couple glasses of champagne and as these things go, we started talking about sex. Gretchen won a round of Texas Hold ’Em with three nines and must have been feeling pretty good. She simply remarked, “I had sex this morning. Third time in a week I’ve had morning sex.”
As moms, having morning sex, not to mention having it three times in one week, was quite a feat.
“Morning sex is great,” Gretchen said. “We do it before the boys wake up, I’m ready to go because I’ve just spent the last eight hours with Brad Pitt in my dreams, and then it’s over in ten minutes. And the best part is then I get to read in the evenings after we put the kids to bed.”
Then it was Natalie’s turn to boast that she and her husband, Trevor, had pulled off a quickie in a cab two weeks ago. We all hailed to the queen and tossed $1 red chips at her in admiration.
Kelly and I just laughed, neither one of us offering any stories. I wondered what was wrong with me if everyone else was actually ha**ng s*x once, twice, three times a week and in cabs. I decided after I cashed in my forty-five dollars in winnings that I would definitely, come hell or high water, have sex with my husband that night. If I had to pin him down on the bed, tie him up, handcuff him. Because I wanted him. I had always wanted him since that night I laid eyes on him at Matt Murphy’s in Boston. I had never not wanted him.
I applied lip liner and lipstick in the window of the train home. I fluffed out my hair in the faded glass in the front door of our apartment building. I walked two flights up and unlocked the door to find Aidan wasn’t alone. He was seated on the couch, calmly, with a skinny man, probably in his forties, with thinning hair and a beaky nose.
“This is Calvin,” Aidan said.
I was a little tipsy from the champagne, so I reached a hand out to shake Calvin’s hand. “Well, hello, Calvin, and welcome to our humble home. Were you guys watching the playoffs or something?” I don’t follow sports, but there’s always some sort of championship game on.
“Actually, Jane. Calvin is my sponsor.”
Sponsor? Was my husband a drinker, a drug addict, and I didn’t know? Was he in AA or NA or something else?
Aidan kept talking. “Jane, I told you I’ve been going to night classes in European History at NYU for the last few months. That’s not true.”