I Hate Everyone, Except You(49)

“There’s a condom on the nightstand,” she said. “I’m going into the bathroom. Have it on when I come out.”

“Sure,” he said.

They had sex (the details of which will be left to the reader’s imagination) and when it was over, Clayton said, “I guess I’ll get going now.”

“No,” she said. “You have to stay over.”

“I do?” He was confused.

“That’s the way it goes.”

He supposed it was the gentlemanly thing to do. Plus, he didn’t want her to think he was running away like some completely flustered gay guy, which he absolutely was. So he got back into her bed and stared up at the ceiling for approximately six hours. He had barely fallen asleep when she initiated sex again (the details of which will be left to the reader’s imagination).

She got out of bed and put on a red kimono-style robe. “You have to take me to breakfast now. That’s the way it goes.”

They sat across from each other at a nearby diner. She ordered a spinach and feta omelet with a side of bacon, toast, and home fries, all of which she devoured as though she had spent the last month in a Turkish prison. He ordered pancakes, which he pushed away from him after two bites.

After breakfast, Clayton reminded Isabel that even though it was Sunday, he had to work, the glamorous life of a home-shopping host being what it was. She thanked him for breakfast—he had paid for that too—and said she hoped they could hang out again some time. He said sure.

Clayton walked east across Seventy-Second Street until he reached Central Park, where a steady stream of joggers and bicyclists were headed south in their great counterclockwise loop. He crossed through them when given the opportunity and into Sheep Meadow. Though it was empty now, later in the day this well-manicured lawn would be packed with people his age who couldn’t afford a vacation house in the Hamptons, Fire Island, or the Jersey Shore. He knew this because he was one of them. He was less than halfway across the lawn when he decided he couldn’t bear the thought of his polo shirt touching his body—perhaps it was the humidity of this August morning—so he took it off and held it limply by his side. He wanted so much to lie down on the grass but he knew he might fall asleep there, probably for too long. He considered the embarrassment of being discovered by an acquaintance who had come to the park to get some sun and be flirty with guys on other blankets and continued his trek.

When Clayton arrived at his building, he put his shirt back on, feeling sufficiently like a degenerate. He unlocked his apartment door to find Pete, standing in the hallway wearing pajama bottoms and no shirt, sipping coffee from an oversized mug, which looked particularly large because of Pete’s small body. “Looks like someone had a fun night,” Pete said.

“I don’t know if I’d say that, but it was a night.”

Pete offered Clayton coffee, which he accepted, and while he was pouring it from the carafe, he asked, “What time do you go to work?”

“I have to be there at one,” Clayton said. “So I’ll leave around twelve thirty. Why?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to have sex.” Pete smiled. He had big, perfect teeth, which Clayton envied. “I’ve never even had braces,” he had told Clayton on their first date.

“Sure,” said Clayton. “Why the hell not.”

So Pete and Clayton had sex (the details of which will be left to the reader’s imagination). When it was over, Clayton ran the shower and when the temperature was to his liking, entered the tub and sat down, his head resting on the back wall. He stayed like that for more than half an hour, until Pete knocked on the bathroom door to remind him to go to work.

On Monday morning Clayton went to the office for meetings with buyers and executives. Around lunchtime while he was checking his sales figures on his computer, Isabel plopped onto his desk again. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and her hands clasped along the edge on either side of her knees, the way a schoolgirl might sit while waiting her turn in a spelling bee.

She looked around for witnesses and, seeing none, said at a conversational volume, “So that was fun.” When Clayton responded with an mmm hmmm and an obvious lack of eye contact, Isabel dropped her head closer to his. “I could have you fired, you know,” she said. Her tone seemed remarkably upbeat and flirty.

Clayton, too tired for games, looked Isabel in the eye and said, “Actually, I don’t think you could.” And he went back to his computer screen.

Some small part of Clayton wondered whether Isabel would tell her boss the truth, a fiction, or anything at all. But as the days went by his concern diminished steadily. Soon the channel laid off almost half its employees, including Isabel.

*

Eight years later, Clayton was walking in the West Village one evening with his boyfriend, Alex, and someone—Isabel!—grabbed his arm. “How are you?” she asked warmly, as if addressing a best friend she hadn’t seen in years.

It took him a second to place her; to be honest he couldn’t remember her name immediately. “I’m good, thank you,” he said. “You?”

“I’m . . . great,” she said. “Yeah, I’m great.”

And that was it. They said good-bye. A few steps later, Alex asked, “Who was that?”

“Just some girl I used to work with,” Clayton said. “Do you want to go back to your place and have sex?”