Chapter 13A

During the night I awoke twice, finding it dark and still outside. Each time, I felt creepy and giddy and unable to define the vexing nervousness in my legs and chest. When I awoke the third time, it was daylight. Martha was walking into the bedroom in her heels. Dressed and ready for work, she came to my side of the bed.

She asked, "What on earth were you dreaming about all night?"

I turned onto my back, rubbing my bleary eyes. "I was dreaming?"

She sat on the bed and rested a hand on my shoulder. "You woke me up several times, moving around."

I yawned. "I don't remember any nightmare."

"Not a nightmare, a dream. Very restless."

"Yeah? What'd I say?"

"Nothing. Just a lot of moving around."

I shrugged. "Don't remember."

Her eyes were concerned and affectionate, like those of the perfect television mom. She leaned toward me and gave my cheek a kiss. Then she got up and started out of the room. "I have to get to work. I'm late, as usual." She blew me a kiss and then hustled through the living room and out the front door.

For the rest of the day and the next few days, she made no mention of Ronnie or of Wednesday night.

Tension. Formless, headachy tension. It slowed my morning run to a plodding waste of time. On returning to Martha's I was too listless to fix breakfast. I ate at a coffee shop, staring at my reflection in the mirror behind the lunch counter and trying to connect the way I looked with the way I felt. I looked calm. I felt so confused and lackluster that I couldn't even identify the problem. I knew I should have felt elated after the previous night. I thought about Martha, Martha on her way to work a while ago, Martha looking neat and almost prim; and I tried reconciling that with Martha and Ronnie and myself the night before.

The workout at Fiore's cleared my head a little. Then I jogged to Ronnie's office building. It was Thursday; I had no excuse worthy of avoiding lunch with Ronnie, save for a general squeamishness while waiting inside her office building for her appearance.

When she met me in the lobby, Ronnie walked to me with her usual chummy, welcoming smile. Then, unexpectedly, she gave me a brief but very, very affectionate though sisterly hug. While we were in the brief clinch I remained outwardly reserved, expecting the stares I would have gotten from people in a crowded lobby in Memphis. But in New York the crowd merely acted as if we stood in their way.

Outside on the sidewalk she asked, "Would you like Chinese for lunch?"

I shrugged, the sun hurting my eyes. The nature of Ronnie's hug made things seem to be moving a little too fast and in unforeseen directions. Were her expectations of me the same as Martha's? I caught Ronnie looking at me again, waiting for an answer to her question about lunch. I blinked, and I shrugged again.

She said, "Does that mean yes?"

I nodded yes. "Yeah. Okay."

She led me toward a small Chinese place two blocks away. She made some cheery comments, but my response was sluggish and absent-minded. She kept glancing at me, puzzled at first, then more guardedly. In the restaurant we sat by a window, as usual, and scanned the menu. Making her choice early she set her menu aside, but I buried my face in mine, unable to concentrate and, partially, avoiding her. After a long moment at the table I glanced up at her. She was looking at me with a questioning half-smile.

Then she spoke the very words that summed up my situation. She asked, trying to sound casual but sounding a little timorous, "What's the matter? Can't you handle last night?

When I heard her question I was thunderstruck and speechless -- so much so that all I could do was shrug and turn my face away, uneasily scratching the back of my neck like the young idiot I was. It was a shocking moment of revelation: Of course I couldn't handle it!

She grinned mockingly. "Steven, you're not gonna start that old morning-after stuff with *me*. Are you?" Then she joked, "Or, uh, did we just wear you out or something?"

She stopped to glance out of the corner of her eye as some incoming customers passed near us, and I glanced at them for a moment. Then Ronnie propped her hands on her elbows and watched her fingers as she fiddled with them. Smiling confidentially she went on, "Well, personally, I was at work today acting silly and crazy, celebrating the first orgasm that another person actually *gave* me. And the folks at work just stared at me. It's terrible, I don't know anybody there well enough to blab it to. Know what I mean? My first." Her eyes watched me, waiting.

Like an idiot, I stared at her. The best I knew to do with such a subject was to nod in agreement and don a weak smile and joke lamely, "So, uh, the people at work don't catch on, huh?"

Ronnie frowned irritably. She said, "Y'know, all guys must have this, uh, general deflation problem afterwards that starts in one place and spreads overnight." She gave a bored sigh. "Maybe I shouldn't hug you in lobbies like that. A lot of people don't like public displays." She shrugged again. "My problem, not yours. I told you I was crazy."

I could have kicked myself. Why the hell hadn't I paid attention to her, instead of working myself into a funk? Ronnie was always so easygoing, I had no inkling of how sensitive she really was, and if I had, I was too short-circuited and unsure of myself to manage it sensibly. I was suddenly, furiously impatient with my timidity.

She blinked at me. "What's the matter? Hey, Steven."

I said, looking straight into her, "You're right."

She blinked again. "I'm right?"

I said, feeling blood rush to my face, "Yes. I couldn't handle it. I'm too shy and stupid, and I'm getting tired of it, because you don't deserve that kind of inconsiderate treatment." I looked around quickly, embarrassed that my own voice was rising. I hunched forward, my elbows on the table, hands folded. Ronnie was frowning, surprised but attentive. I confessed, "In order for me to say that, I had to... I had to let somebody get close enough, and right now... you're the only person I know who I'm not afraid to say that to. So... if you want to slap somebody's face, then slap mine -- not yours. You're too good for that. I mean, you're pretty and passionate and... you deserve better. I'm such a... bumpkin. I can't even hug back, or say anything, or --"

She scowled mildly and held up a cautioning hand. "Hold on, hold on, there, just... just hold it a second." She turned her face away, toward the window, seeming suddenly lost in thought. Then to my dismay she held a palm to her cheek and seemed no longer thoughtful but simply taken aback, possibly shocked. Then she whispered, her face still toward the window, "'Scuze me," and with her other hand she used a knuckle to dab at an eye on her far cheek, and she wagged her head slightly and complained to herself, "Oh, I don't believe this." Then she gave a little sniffle.

And I sighed, disconcerted, going limp in my chair and raising my eyes to the ceiling, asking myself: Why the hell are women always doing this? Could I be nice to women without bringing them to this?

I conceded, impatient, "Okay, maybe I'm doing this wrong. I mean, you deserve better than just me hemming and hawing -- I'm sorry, I guess I still have a lot to learn." I waited, expecting Ronnie to either chew me out or just get up and leave.

She turned toward me, lowering her head and blushing and giving her other eye a small wipe with her fingers, and she smiled as if to herself, muttering absently, "This is nuts, I'm as bad as you are." She sniffled again but straightened in her chair and said, "Well, considering last night, I don't know that you have *that* much to learn."

I said glumly, "I don't mean that. I mean the rest of it."

She smiled wryly. "Yes, the rest of it, well... that is the tough part. I have trouble with that, myself." She looked around absently, still smiling to herself, but blinking as if trying to dispel the slight redness in her eyes.

Hastily I reached for the napkin holder. "Here, let me..."

She gave a quick, dismissive flick of her hand. "Oh, stop, I don't need that. Forget it."

I said, "I mean, here I was, acting like that George character you talk about. How could anybody be dumb enough to treat you like that?"

She shrugged. "Well, now, George was, uh, had his own unique kind of addictive magnetism, I guess. Astonishing. But, then, I think guys fall for the same thing in girls, too, don't they?"

The waiter arrived, a polite, middle aged Chinese man. He took Ronnie's order, and while he took mine Ronnie put an elbow on the table and raised a hand to lean her chin on it and looked out the window. After taking my order, the waiter scooted to another table. I looked at Ronnie, trying to figure out what to say next.

Gazing out the window, Ronnie gave a little chuckle, her rueful smile widening with a blush. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just -- You know, you could have used one of the more standard lines, like 'Boy, last night was just wonderful.' Or how about: 'Y'know, Veronica, you're a great piece of ass'. A guy actually used that on me. And with a straight face, too. I thought he was gonna slap me on the back and give me a cigar." She looked out the window again. "But you had to go and say something totally unexpected." She shook her head, "Sometimes you sneak in through the side door."

I said, still kicking myself, "Well, I act like an idiot on the beach, and I act like a George when you try to me nice to me, and--" I fumed quietly, trying to find the words. "I'm sick of being so... irritating. It made me look like another George."

She grinned and she shook her head no and made another casual wave of her hand. "Oh, Steven, you're fine, I'm fine. Really. It's just that -- " She shook her head again, and said, "You know what Martha told me on the train yesterday? She said 'Steven has a way of hiding out from you that's very irritating. Then he does something so nice it breaks your heart'."

"She said that?"

"Yeah, I just now remembered it."

"So... Well, if I broke your heart, I'm sorry. I didn't--"

She shook her head no, protesting, "No, of course not. You just surprised me, that's all." She picked up her menu and opened it and looked inside. "I think I'm gonna order dessert this time around." She sighed. "You're okay. I was just stuck somewhere in what I thought was a repeat performance. Maybe we both have a few things to learn about our own conditioning." She glanced up at me, and patted my hand and joked in her bad Southern accent, "You done gooood!" Then her gaze softened and she teased, "You put so much effort into talking yourself down."

Still angry with myself, I blushed.

She brought her water glass toward her mouth and said, "And you still blush too much. I really have to cure you of that." She took a drink of water and set the glass down and leaned forward on her elbows and beamed at me. "So how about it? When are you gonna pose for me?"

That night, Martha came home from work so beat and bedraggled that the first thing she did as she removed her heels at the door was to groan, "Oooh, heaven help me. What ever happened to that brilliant idea you had a few days ago about getting more sleep for a change?"

I said, setting up the dinner table, "See? I told you it would catch up with us sooner or later. But, alas, no one ever listens to me. A prophet is always ignored in his own time. Come on, I got us some dinner."