The Trouble with Lexie Page 6

  “It was a very sexy teeter.” Daniel looked from the boot to Lexie’s face. She took a clipped, short breath and hid the boot under the table.

  “My mother once told me I walk like a spaz—bumping into everything, knocking things over with my hips.” Mitzy had said it every time Lexie stormed around the kitchen, furiously trying to scrub away the fuzzy, greased layer of grit that went unnoticed by her parents.

  “A spaz? Nah. You walk lightly. Like a cat. You look like you’d purr if I stroked you the right way.”

  There was a held breath of stillness as Lexie’s mind hovered over the word stroke. “OK. I’m a cat and Janet Irwin’s a hunting dog.”

  “You’re never gonna let me live that comment down, are you?” Daniel was smiling.

  “I guess not.” Lexie liked the intimacy of an inside joke. “So, what animal are you?”

  “Hmmm . . .” Daniel leaned forward as if to make sure Lexie had clicked into his eyes before he spoke. “You’ll have to tell me after you’ve gotten to know me very, very well.”

  “You think I’m going to get to know you very, very well?” She patted the Klonopin in her skirt pocket and looked away for one second as she thought of Amy. If Amy could have a conversation like this, could have feelings like this toward a stranger without being pummeled by anxiety, so could she. Lexie dared herself to look back.

  “Yes. Absolutely.” Daniel’s barely blinked.

  The waitress approached. When Daniel turned to give their order (Frito pie and Perrier) Lexie instantly missed the way it felt to have him looking at her. The waitress left, and Daniel turned back to Lexie and stared.

  “What?” Lexie asked.

  “Last night I lay awake for hours thinking about you.”

  “Why would you do that?” Lexie imagined herself telling Amy she had said that and Amy laughing at what a flirting failure Lexie was.

  “Because there’s something about you—something special pulling me toward you in this unstoppable way. The first time I saw you, I craved your body with the hunger of a starving man in a Turkish prison. It felt like you were . . . like you are—”

  “A hamburger?” Lexie said, nervously, and Daniel laughed.

  “No. You’re not ground meat—”

  “All wormy and bright with that pink dye.” It was anxious prattle. Lexie couldn’t stop and look at what he’d said for two reasons: First, it was somewhat corny, overblown, and odd. And second, she didn’t want to know that his crush on her was as bad as hers on him.

  Because then, maybe, one of them would have to do something about it.

  “You aren’t food. But you’re feeding me something I didn’t realize I needed until I met you,” Daniel said.

  “But you don’t even know me. You don’t know my middle name, or what my feet look like, or how much face cream I put on every night before bed, or if my pits smell at the end of the workday.” Lexie kept deodorant in her purse because she believed that her pits stunk at the end of the workday.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Daniel said, “I know that your pits smell great. You have the face of a woman with flowery pits.”

  Lexie laughed. Amy was right, she’d laugh at anything that came out of Daniel Waite’s mouth. “What if I have ugly feet?” In fact, her feet were the only part of her body that Lexie openly admitted were gorgeous.

  “You’re right, I have no idea what your feet look like or if you have a birthmark or whether or not you floss your teeth. But you have to admit there was an undeniable connection when we met. It was powerful, and surprising, and I didn’t ask for it, it happened on its own. And I know you’re engaged. I know this is going nowhere. I’ll never try to persuade you to be unfaithful. But I want to be around you as much as you’ll allow because there’s something magical about you. You make me feel great.”

  “Oh, well, OK.” Lexie laughed nervously. Maybe she should take the Klonopin and normalize her behavior.

  “Listen. I promise, I won’t bring this up again. Especially not after you’re married.” Daniel reached across the table and put his sprawling hand on top of Lexie’s. She looked down and thought of a starfish covering a rock. “You can trust me.”

  This matter-of-fact declaration, and his insistence that he wouldn’t pursue her, made Daniel even more compelling. Lexie felt almost ill with desire.

  THEY AGREED TO NOT TALK ABOUT THE ATTRACTION AGAIN. (LEXIE didn’t confess to being attracted to Daniel, but it appeared to have been assumed.) Instead, the conversation was steered once again to their childhoods.

  Lexie told Daniel about Swallow at the Hollow and Heidi Pies; the drinking, the cigarettes, and the pot; the burn holes in the couch; and her mother’s current boyfriend who, Mitzy had told her, showed up on their first date riding a bike and carrying a half-full bottle of wine in a backpack.

  “So, other than your father providing the seed and your mother giving birth to you, what did your parents do for you? I mean, did they buy you food and underwear at least?” Daniel was getting angry on Lexie’s behalf. Like they had wronged him with their unparenting.

  “Uh, well . . .” Lexie never had nice underwear growing up. And she wore bras by the year: Her eighth-grade bra. Her ninth-grade bra. Her tenth-grade bra, etc. By the time each school year was ending, the underwire half-moon had shifted out of its seam pocket. Why even call it a wire? It was far thicker than anything that could be called wire: a flat, metal prong that, when uncovered, would stab her in the side of the breast until she went into a bathroom, lifted up her shirt, and fed it back into place. Lexie did have more than one pair of underwear as a kid, but none of them were fresh-looking. Once, as Lexie was changing in the locker room after gym in eighth grade, Kim Carnesale looked at her and said, “Are those granny panties actually hand-me-downs from your grandmother?” Lexie had laughed, painfully, along with Kim and the other girls nearby—most of them from the drill team—the blond girls, the ones with thick-skinned tan legs that you thought were panty hose until you got close enough to see it was flesh. Lexie didn’t own nice panties to replace the ones she’d been shamed about. And she had no money to buy new panties (her babysitting money was used to buy school lunches) so for the rest of the year Lexie sat on the bench when she changed. With her jeans draped across her lap, she’d shimmy out of her gym shorts, then slip on her pants before anyone could see what was what.

  “I had raggedy, ridiculous underwear,” Lexie said. “We were poor. Underwear wasn’t a priority.”

  “I know it would be inappropriate, but I want to buy you a hundred pairs of beautiful underwear.” Daniel said this with only the slightest hint of a smile. He appeared serious.

  “But I have totally sexy underwear now. That’s the great thing about being a grown-up—you’re in charge of your own underwear.” Lexie regretted telling Daniel about her bad underwear. It was something Peter didn’t know and now there was an imbalance in intimacy. And yet she felt an irrepressible urge to reveal even more private details about herself. It occurred to her that she’d gone completely mad.

  6

  THE AGREEMENT WAS THIS: ONE KISS. ONE LAST KISS FROM ONE man before Lexie got married and never kissed another man besides Peter in her life. And now they were in an elegant room at the Inn on the Lake (Daniel had already secured the room, he told Lexie, as he didn’t want to deal with rush-hour traffic into Boston where his condo was, and he didn’t want to deal with his soon-to-be-ex-wife at the lake house) and Lexie was completely naked. How she got from one kiss to naked was both mystifying and understandable. It was like saying you were going to take only one spoonful of chocolate mousse when mousse is your favorite dessert and you think you need to diet.

  Lexie knew she sounded like a middle schooler—the only words she’d uttered in the last forty-five minutes were oh my god and oh my god. Currently, Daniel’s face was between Lexie’s legs in what Amy called “the signature move of a man in his fifties.” Amy, who had dated many men in their fifties, found that every single one of them was ready, wi
lling, and skilled at oral sex. “Maybe it’s a way to compensate for a dick that isn’t as hard as it used to be,” Amy had wondered aloud one day. But Lexie had felt what was going on down there with Daniel and it didn’t feel much less solid than what she’d experienced with Peter.

  “You know I won’t have sex with you,” Lexie said.

  Daniel came up for air. His face was dewy and damp, even with the haze of whiskers. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” He winked.

  “I mean intercourse.”

  “Okay.” Daniel spoke as if he had never intended to go that far. Lexie felt embarrassed.

  “I mean, were you going to try that?”

  “Try that?” Daniel remained poised between her legs. He stuck one finger on the essential spot and flicked a little as they spoke.

  “Intercourse.” Lexie could barely get the word out, as the finger continued the work the tongue had started.

  “We’re two adults here. I wasn’t going to try anything. Whatever we do is up to us together.” Daniel removed his hand and waited for Lexie to look at his face.

  “Oh, right.” Lexie laughed, embarrassed. “I’ve only been with three people.”

  “Including me? So only your fiancé and someone else?”

  “Not including you. So you’re the fourth man who has seen my open vagina.”

  Daniel leaned down like he was looking through a speculum. He brought his head up again. “Well, I feel very sorry for the billions of men and women on the planet who have never, and probably will never, get to see a sight as lovely as this.”

  Lexie laughed. “How many have you seen?”

  “Vaginas?” Daniel scooted up and pulled Lexie’s body into his, suctioning them together.

  “Yeah, how many people have you been with?”

  “I’m fifty-three and I’ve been married for twenty years.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I first had sex when I was sixteen. So, between sixteen and thirty-one when I met my wife . . . I don’t know. Maybe thirty people?”

  “Am I your first affair?”

  “I’ve never had an affair. We’re separated. But yes, yours is the first vagina I’ve seen since I laid eyes on my wife’s.”

  “How’s your wife’s compared to mine?” Lexie wasn’t feeling competitive. She wanted to know what to look forward to, or dread. Would her labia be a mess of flappy, sea-creature wings when she hit fifty?

  “Hers is fine. The thing about vaginas is this: Unless there’s a strange smell, or a strange sound, they’re all wonderful.”

  “So that thing you said about feeling sorry for all the people who wouldn’t meet mine—”

  “Yours is especially wonderful.” Daniel kissed her. His mouth smelled oatmeally and tasted a little tangy.

  The kissing led to more sliding around and suddenly Daniel had sliced inside Lexie. She jerked back, unlocking their two parts.

  “You okay?” Daniel turned Lexie’s face toward his and stared into her eyes.

  “What about STDs? We haven’t done a panel!” Could she get something from that moment?

  “I haven’t been with anyone but my wife in more than two decades. And I can guarantee my wife hasn’t been with anyone else.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Jen is gorgeous and smart, but she has no interest in sex. She hit menopause two years ago and that was it for her.”

  “Well, what if she fooled around before?”

  “Believe me. I know my wife.”

  “You think there is no way on earth she’s had sex with anyone but you in twenty years?”

  “Twenty-two years. I’d bet my son’s life on it. And I know absolutely that I haven’t had sex with anyone else in twenty-two years.”

  “So why are you so calm?” Was he lying? Lexie felt the shallow water of nausea stir in her stomach. Had she been completely bamboozled?

  “Calm?”

  “This isn’t freaking you out? I mean, for twenty-two years, you’ve been having sex with the same woman, the same naked body, the same vagina, the same breasts, the same mouth, night after night after night. And now you’re here with me. And you’re not totally freaking out?”

  “I don’t freak out. I’m not a freak-out guy.” Daniel pulled Lexie in tighter and hugged her until she softened. He kissed her, sweetly, on the lips. The eyes. The nose. The chin.

  Lexie let herself breathe deeply. She looked over at her skirt on the chair. She could do this without the Klonopin in the skirt pocket. She could relax. “Well, even if you don’t have an STD, we need birth control.”

  “I was snipped. Not a problem.”

  “Snipped?” This was the first time fifty-three seemed old. How odd that Daniel was over and done with all the child-rearing stuff that hadn’t even yet begun for Lexie.

  “Clamped. One of those reversible ones. You know, in case.” Daniel slid himself in between Lexie’s legs and rubbed back and forth like he was playing the violin.

  “They can do that?” Lexie was growing breathless.

  “Yes. You okay if I go back in?”

  “You swear you don’t have an STD? I’ve never done it without doing a full panel beforehand.” Whatever resistance she had was being methodically rubbed away.

  “You are a beautiful nutball. Don’t you trust me?”

  “Mmm, I keep flipping back and forth with the trust.” She could barely keep her eyes open.

  “I trust you.” Daniel kissed her.

  “OK. I trust you, too.” Lexie was whispering. “I don’t know why. But I do.”

  THE SEX WAS INCREDIBLE. OTHERWORLDLY. TANTRIC. OKAY, NOT tantric. But maybe mystical. Lexie had never before known sex like this existed. She thought of case studies she’d read of crack addicts, how the first time they did the drug their brains lit up so intensely and in such a novel and spirit-altering way that all they wanted from then on was more crack. Now something deep inside of Lexie, a place she hadn’t known existed, was lit with an addiction-like intensity. And this internal light was entirely connected to the idea and the physical being of Daniel Waite.

  Guiltily, Lexie thought about Peter—dear, sweet, Peter. Sex with Peter was good, she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him if that weren’t the case. Peter was a man with skills. He was strong. He never made demands, asked for very little, and gave a lot. But their sex had never had the intensity of what had happened with Daniel. There had never been the tsunami of emotion that had almost drowned Lexie with sensation. And there had never been this postcoital dreaminess. It was a feeling Lexie couldn’t help but equate with the immaculate contentedness one feels when slightly drunk, after a perfect meal, with the very best company.

  Lexie and Daniel lay side by side holding hands. Lexie looked around the room. It was the most luxurious room she had ever been in. She didn’t realize the people of Ruxton, Massachusetts, would know enough to put such thick, soft linens on a bed, or to place a massive bouquet of yellow flowers near the window on a table that appeared to have no other purpose than to hold flowers.

  Lexie pulled the sheet up around herself while strategically letting one breast fall out to the side. She kicked out the opposite leg: symmetry, visual balance. Daniel rolled to his stomach and kissed the nipple of the exposed breast. He turned his face up toward hers and they kissed. Lexie’s head exploded as if it were a first kiss, though they’d been at it for two and a half hours.

  “We’re both in transition,” Lexie said, when Daniel pulled away from the kiss.

  “How’s that?” Daniel dropped his cheek onto the pillow and stared at her. No one had ever stared at Lexie the way he did. Certainly not her parents. And not even Peter, who usually fell fast asleep postorgasm, and who shut his eyes so continually during sex that Lexie imagined he was listening to a symphony in his head and he needed to eliminate one of his senses in order to properly hear it.

  “I’m on my way into a marriage and you’re on your way out of one,” Lexie clarified.

  “Your situation, however, is much bett
er than mine. You, my dear, can cleanly extricate yourself. There are no children. I’m assuming whatever assets you have can be easily divided. Have you merged your bank accounts yet?”

  “No.” Lexie whispered as if Peter might overhear this conversation. Even after all these days thinking about Daniel, and thinking about sex with Daniel, Lexie had never once thought about leaving Peter. Until now. Until Daniel planted the idea as if it were a full-blown possibility.

  “So, all you have to do is step aside and it’s over,” Daniel went on. “No blood on the carpet. No bodies strewn in the hall.”

  “Are you leaving behind blood and bodies?”

  “Well, a twenty-year marriage certainly isn’t bloodless. And a kid, even if he’s about to go off to college, is still a body.”

  Lexie had almost forgotten about Ethan. The thing, person, human she and Daniel had intended to discuss the first time they met. The topic on the slate for today’s Frito Friday meeting. “Why is it again, that you don’t want to tell Ethan about the separation?”

  “His mother doesn’t want anything to distract him from his last year at Ruxton, applying to colleges, enjoying senior year. You know.”

  “That’s very generous of you two.” Lexie’s own parents never suppressed their desires or altered their behavior because there was a child in the house. The day Lexie packed to move into Betsy Simms’s house, Mitzy was having sex with her new boyfriend in the bedroom. With the door open.

  “MOM!” Lexie had said, and she’d turned her head and pulled the door shut.

  “For godsakes you’ve been watching R-rated movies since you were five!” Mitzy had shouted through the closed door.

  “I think Jen’s coddling him a little,” Daniel said. “But I’m letting her decide how things roll with Ethan. Soon enough it will be official and, hopefully, he’ll be able to handle it.”

  “Are you sad about it?”

  “Sad?”

  “Yeah. About the end of the family. The end of your relationship with your wife.”

  “If we’d done it quickly, like an amputation, I might have been sad. But this separation has been like a long, slow gnawing off of a limb. I’ll be relieved when it’s completely over.”