Rich and Pretty(55)

“Well, it’s a pretty nice suit,” she says.

“Wait until you see my dancing.”

“That bad?”

“A fancy suit will only partially make up for it,” he says.

She shrugs. “I just don’t want you to, I don’t know, feel obligated. You can wear whatever.”

“That is total bullshit, but okay. Seriously, don’t worry about it. My sister will get married eventually. I’ll have to go to funerals. A man can use a black suit.”

“Future funerals, do tell me more.” She picks up one of the tags he’s snipped from one of the shirts, a heavy rectangle of cardboard, and throws it at him. “Maybe I can recommend a good psychiatrist?”

“God, you’re so pretty, you know that?” He drops the sweater on top of the dresser. “You are so pretty.”

Junior year, coming out of a classroom, maybe European history, but her memory can only manage the general feelings, the atmosphere, she heard a snatch of conversation, not directed at her but not necessarily meant to be kept from her. Patrick Adler, finishing something he was saying to someone, some guy named Shane or Shawn. Speaking of her, and Sarah, she knew that, though she can’t remember the context that made it clear that it was them he meant: something to do with a party, a concert, a plan for a coming weekend. “You take rich, I’ll take pretty.” She’s always remembered that. She’s always known which she was. She’s never been quite sure which of them came out better, in the end.

“Thanks,” she says. What can she say?

“You don’t have to thank me. You are.” He hurls himself onto the bed, leaps onto it, like a boy into a pile of leaves. The mattress quakes under the force of him.

She thinks he is going to kiss her, thinks he is going to f*ck her, thinks she should suck his dick, do something, he deserves something, he’s spent more than a thousand dollars on something he thinks is going to please her, and done it with a smile on his face. But he doesn’t. He reaches up for her, pulls her down toward him until she’s lying on the bed next to him, the two of them staring up at the ceiling, where a little patch of late winter sunshine still lingers. The apartment is quiet. It smells of him—detergent, maleness, something hard to place. He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she, and after a few minutes she realizes he’s fallen asleep, abruptly. She lies like that, next to him, for what seems a long time, not wanting to wake him.

They lie there, his snore soft, like a baby’s, then she sleeps, then wakes, notices he’s not there. He’s in the kitchen, because they’ve made a plan. He’s promised her a meal, promised to use one of her books, by a celebrity Italian chef, small as a bird, whose signature touch is putting lemon zest into everything.

“Veal,” he says, triumphantly. He sweeps an arm over the counter, proudly, as she comes in from the bedroom. He’s bought the good stuff, wrapped in white paper and tied with twine, from the old-school butcher. Those used to be everywhere in this neighborhood—as well as plumbers, coffee roasters, funeral directors. You still see statuary (the somber virgin, the lamb of God) in front of the homes of the more devout, though most of the old Italians have moved off to Long Island, sold their brownstones to enthusiastic millionaires of no particular faith. One of the churches has been turned into condos.

“How cruel,” she says. She yawns and crawls onto one of the kitchen stools.

“Cruelly delicious,” he says, flicking through the twine with the end of his sharpest knife and unrolling the paper, like a child at Christmas.

The kitchen counter divides the kitchen from the living room, nominally; in truth, the kitchen is a wall of the living room. Rob likes to cook or is learning that he likes to cook, anyway. The cookbook is splayed open on the cheap stone countertop. An NPR quiz show is playing softly in the background. He probably didn’t want to wake her. He rents this apartment. It’s nice enough.

“I have a secret,” she says.

“Do tell.” He’s not wearing an apron, but there is a striped dish towel draped jauntily over his shoulder.

“Maybe you should sit down,” she says. “Sarah is pregnant.”

“Sarah, friend Sarah, the Sarah who’s getting married? Premarital sex?”

“I was shocked, too,” she says.

“Congratulations to Sarah, friend Sarah whom I have never met but whose wedding I will dance at. We should have a toast. Pour some wine, would you?” He gestures at her with his meat-contaminated hands.

She pours the wine, which has been breathing, though she can’t see how that would make any difference in the thing. The wineglasses are very tall. She clinks her glass against his, which is still sitting on the counter. “To Sarah and baby,” she says.

“Seriously, though, is this a surprise? It must be a surprise.”

“It’s a surprise,” she says. “Which is unlike her. She’s usually got everything under control. I guess she thought she had this under control, too, but you know, sperm, they’re dogged little suckers.”

“There but for the grace of God,” he says. He washes his hands, sips the wine. “Is she excited?”

“I think so,” she says. “It’s the way it was meant to be. Just early. I told her not to sweat it. I don’t think anyone will know it to look at her. She’s got a body for childbearing. She can disguise it.”