Impact 15: of The Bitch

She has a full day, including a late night for an event in Williamsburg that she wants me to come to.

"We'll meet for sushi first."

"I've never really... had sushi?" I admit.

"What?"

"Buffalo wasn't a big sushi destination when I was growing up?" I explain. "But even if it was, my family wasn't exactly a 'sushi household' and then..."

"...you don't eat fish."

"Yeah, so I never saw the point?"

"Don't worry, you'll like it," she promises. "There's always lots of vegetarian things, and it's going to be a fun group. It will be fun, you'll see."

Watching Claire get dressed, I send Kip a text asking him to take us to the beach.

who?

Claire and I.

now?

This weekend. It's going to be hot.

yes.

YAY!

I wait for a reply, but there's none. He probably jumped in the shower.

"Ready!" Claire announces, smiling at me, in all her glory. "Who is this?" she asks, looking at my phone.

"Kip. He's in."

"For the beach?" she says, eyes going big.

"Yes!"

"Yay!"

"That's what I said!"

She wants to know the details. I admit there are none, that I'll track Kip down at work.

"I like the midtown crowds."

We are pushing eastward through the cross currents of commuters moving north and south with the lights, her arm is through mine, we are holding each other tight.

"You do not."

"No, I do! It's what I pictured New York like before I moved here. Like Diane Keaton in Working Girl, with the sneakers."

"It was Melanie Griffith," I correct, smiling because I think Claire is having some fun, pretending to be mixed up. "And I think she worked downtown?"

"Whatever," she says, looking pleased with herself.

"You will be OK today? It's not too soon?" She asks, her eyes worried.

"I'm OK," I promise, feeling around inside my heart, wondering if I am. "I'm not fragile, I won't break."

"I know," she agrees, looking worried. "But you are tender..."

"I liked this morning," I tell her. "I liked hearing you swear."

This makes her smile and roll her eyes a little.

"You get me worked up..."

"I mean to."

"May I kiss my girlfriend?" she asks. We are just outside The Times building, facing each other, standing very close, holding hands. We might as well already be kissing. It's still early, but my coworkers are beginning to trickle in, no one in particular, no one who greets me, but people I recognize.

"If she's your girlfriend you must kiss her," I tease.

"Yes but, may I kiss her," she corrects, and then lower, more seriously she asks, "may I kiss her here and now, like she is my girlfriend?"

"She is always your girlfriend, everywhere," I pledge. "You may do anything to her you want, whenever you want, anywhere you want."

Just saying these things makes me feel light, offering myself to her this way. And I love seeing the effect my words have on Claire, how exciting she finds that promise. Eyes shining and nostrils flaring, she kisses me, square on the lips. She doesn't dip me or open her mouth to me, but there is no mistaking the kind of kiss she's giving me. For all my bravada, I blush scarlet, which pleases her immensely.

Our morning had started early enough that I was still the first to arrive. There was a vase of flowers waiting for me on my desk along with a couple of condolence cards. There's a big one that had been passed around the newsroom, probably by Kip. It had dozens of short notes and signatures, including Kathy and Jen's I'm a little caught off guard by Kathy's note, which is surprisingly warm.

The smaller card had clearly come with the flowers, and was signed by Janet - the woman who I "inherited" my apartment from. She's not someone I have much reason to interact with at the Times. She is on the masthead and the editorial board - a lion of financial journalism and deeply intimidating.

In her elegant, but sharply slanted script, the card offered her condolences and well wishes.

I wrote her an email, thanking her for the wonderful flowers and telling her what a deep source of happiness the apartment is, how happy I was to return home to all the beautiful things she had given me.

Meanwhile our office isn't as messy as I'd feared, but I spent some time tidying, if only to see what was being worked on. Keith likes to make gouache studies early on, so while I'd been able to see the flood of data on income inequality that had been piling up in the digital workspace, there was very little coded imagery. But pinned to the wall and stacked up on the work table were Keith's sketches. Mostly it was just color studies - wonderful sky blues, burnt oranges and browns - but there were some primitive figures as well, a world map scribbled with "health outcomes", a grid of national flags drawn at a variety of scales marked up in pencil titled "Gini Coefficient", and a storyboard I assumed was meant for an animation; life span and mental health, violence.

When my computer had finished booting up I found an email from Keith waiting in my very full inbox:

"Good morning Sarah, I assume you're going to beat me in and snoop around tomorrow, so here's a primer on what you're finding..."

There's also an email thread from Rebekah and Ali. Rebekah had emailed Ali, who CCed me on her reply. Rebekah was just touching base, saying how wonderful it was to "get to know" Ali - her scare-quotes not mine. It makes me smile. Ali's response was friendly and funny, but not flirty. She made a point of sewing me in, writing how great it was to reconnect with me. They go back and forth like that, keeping me CCed even though I'm not chiming in. I can tell Rebekah wants to see Ali again, and while Ali isn't closing the door on that, it's not clear if that's what she wants. I wonder how she feels about what happened. Clearly neither of them have heard the news about my dad, but just the thought of telling them made my chest ache. I was certain I would start crying if I wrote them about it, so I left it go. I'd let them know this weekend.

While I'm reading I get an email from Helen. She's noticed that Claire is back and curious where I am, is hoping to "see" us soon - again, her scare quotes not mine.

I'm not in the mood for flirty double entendres and so instead I let her know about my father, that I'm just getting back. Writing her about what's happened is less loaded, my chest doesn't ache as I type, my eyes don't burn. I look at the words and hit send. Helen's reply was immediate. I could imagine her at her desk, in her wonderfully cluttered library, starting her day as well. I wondered if she dressed for work or was in her robe. I decided she was dressed and made up, even if she was just working from her library.

Unlike her other emails, which were hardly more than a sentence or two and provocative, her reply is a more formal letter, but warm and heartfelt. She writes to tell me how sorry she is to hear the news, to give me her condolences, which are thoughtful and bordering on the poetic. She asks after me, how I am doing, and wants to know if there is anything she can do.

She and I end up emailing back and forth for a bit. I tell her about the stroke when I was young, his depression, how frail and isolated he had been, about the stroke that killed him. She tells me about her father's death, how often she still thinks of him, the impulse, even decades later to share something with him, only to remember afresh that he has passed.

She was very curious to know how it went with work. I explain how supportive Keith was, how he surprised me by attending the funeral. She's glad to know I have such a wonderful boss, that I'm lucky. She doesn't say so but I get the sense that her father's death precipitated a career crisis for her.

She asks about the funeral and I tell her about Claire coming, but I also end up telling her about my mother finding Claire and I holding each other in our sleep, the things she told me, the awkward distance I felt from her after she asked Claire's age... I hadn't even told Claire about that.

Opening up to Helen felt good. I was able to remain dispassionate even as I revealed myself to her. In my mind's eye I pictured her the way she had been that first night; so interested and so very interesting. It reminded me of what attracted me to her, before I knew she was our secret admirer. Helen is the kind of woman I want to be. I covet her obvious professional competence and success, her self confidence. I want to look back on a long professional career like hers, like she does. I want to look back on a long life of traveling to exciting places and working on "beautiful things".

We make a coffee date before she has to sign off for the morning. As sexy as it was to know Helen was watching Claire and me, I'm excited to rekindle this aspect of the friendship I'd assumed was lost. I'd resigned myself to being a sex object for her, rather than the young professional woman she'd admired on our first meeting.

'Why can't I be both?' I wondered, enjoying a little thrill.

Ben arrived with a bouquet of tulips, giving the expensive looking bouquet Janet sent a quick nonplussed glance.

"Those weren't there last night," he mumbled.

I hugged him.

"They're lovely," I assure him, taking the tulips. I meant to add them to Janet's vase, but I couldn't see. The tears had started again, all my dispassion melted away.

"Stupid..." I mumbled and Ben touched my back. He held his hand there while I wept, soothing me.

"I'm sorry," I'd blubbered. "I hate that I'm crying..."

"It sucks Sarah," Ben had rumbled. "I still miss my mom everyday, and it's been four years."

I want to tell Ben that I don't miss my father, that I lost him years ago, that I don't know why I'm crying, or who I'm mourning. I wonder if I'll miss my father years from now, or have moments when I want to share something with him only to remember he's dead.

"I can't imagine losing my mom," I admit instead, but just the image of losing her is so scary I start sobbing in earnest. I can tell Ben is uncomfortable, unsure what to do, I pull away from him, apologizing, making myself stop.

Once I'd calmed down I excused myself, and walked down to the ladies room to clean up. Looking in the mirror I thought how easily the tears had come the night before - at the slightest thing, at nothing at all.

I thought about how gentle Claire had been with me, how tender she had been all evening, how she had made love to me in the heat. I had been certain there would be name calling with the apron, and she had teased, hooting and whistling, but she didn't call me a slut or a whore, not even in French. She had called me her lover and her girlfriend.

And this morning she had maybe come close to calling me a name the first time she came, but had stopped herself. And when she came again, she had laughed, which had made me laugh, but I had wanted the wildness. I could tell she felt self conscious after her third orgasm. Holding me she had whispered to me in French, apologizing for the swearing.

'I've never loved anyone like this, Sarah," she had told me as we parted.

When I got back from cleaning up, Keith was there. I told him how grateful my mom was to him for coming, how much my family all enjoyed meeting him.

"I think it was like meeting the Snuffleupagus," I said, which made both Keith and Ben laugh.

"In what way is Keith like the Snuffleupagus?" Ben wanted to know.

Keith, who is hardly taller than me, can't weigh much more than me, and has NO beard, looks nothing like the shambling long haired muppet. But the question makes me laugh, because Ben, who is gigantic and slow moving, and easily the hairiest person I've ever known, seems maybe... slighted?

"Not morphologically," I teased, laughing at the face Ben made. "It's just they all know I work at The Times, but I'm not sure they really believed it... you should have seen Keith in his black suit and sunglasses. Holy shit do they believe now."

"Your Canadian girlfriend," Ben said with a sly look, which made Keith laugh.

I think again of my cousins and uncles in their brown and blue church clothes. The young men in suits that looked too big, the older men in suits that were stretched around their midriffs. The congregation and other well wishers had all been in their church best as well. Only Keith and Kip and Kwasi had been in black. All three in their beautifully fitted suits, crisp white shirts and black ties. The three of them had exuded an NYC cool. My cousin Devin had said they were like something out of a movie.

Ben and Keith walked me through the work they had done. The project was BIG - meant to be a series. Watching them I realized our day hadn't even started and they were already tired. They'd been working hard on this. I had been afraid I'd missed out, but there was still LOTS to do, and the first part was meant to be done Thursday.

"Next week is going to be crazy," Keith sighed.

I look for Kip at lunch but he's not around, so I text him again.

Where are you?

Bryant Park. Long story. Come find me. I'm on the south side of the lawn. Bring lunch.

What's the beach plan?

tomorrow early, the Bobs are going to come too, they arrive tonight. I'm starving

I've never met the Bobs but have heard a lot about them. They are a couple from DC and stay with Kip pretty regularly. "We'd make Tom of Finland blush," he likes to brag.

I stop for salads on the way to the park, getting the guy to load Kip's with chicken breast and bacon and avocado and hearts of palm - all his favorites. It doesn't take me long to find him. He's staked out a table for two in the shade on the edge of the lawn.

"Your grandmother is the best," Kip says as I walk up. He's in a polo shirt with a popped collar and wearing a straw fedora, reading a book.

"You two were like a house on fire!" I say setting down our lunch.

"Salad... thanks," he says, pulling me in for a smooch. "She told me about coming to New York City to see West Side Story on Broadway with two girlfriends when she was in her early twenties and they let some guy lick their shoes."

"What?!?"

"I know right??"

"The soles?"

"My first question as well. She said couldn't remember for sure, but I think she was being coy. He licked their soles - because seriously, why bother otherwise?"

"How did that even come up?"

"I was telling her and Keith about my foot fetish-"

"Stop!"

"I'm joking, Sarah Beth! Joking!"

"Oh my God, you test me Kippen... wait, did she tell Keith about the shoe licker too?!?"

"What, I don't count?"

"You don't count."

"God I really don't, do I?" Kip said, examining his salad. "Hearts of palm, you do love me... Keith thought it was really funny. How was the rest of the visit? Did Devin ask for my number?"

"No... but Claire showed up," I said, like it was no big deal.

"To Buffalo!?!" It was Kip's turn to be shocked. "I thought she was working in Paris? That she was MIA?!"

"She was, she did," I tell him, feeling proud and happy. "Turns out she went quiet because she flew out Saturday evening as soon as the fair ended..."

"Wow, color me impressed."

"...And my mom knows."

"About you and Claire?!" he asked, dropping his fork, then snatching it up to point it at me accusingly. "Now you're just making things up in some kind of misguided attempt to top my scoop about your grandmother's foot fetish."

"Don't make fun of Mimi or I'll kill you to death," I warned him.

"Fair," he agreed seriously. "OK, start at the beginning. I want ALL the details."

And I did. Telling him about how she surprised me, my mother insisting she stay with us, about how much I'd cried, and was still crying, and my mom finding us the next morning.

"Jesus, that must have been awkward."

"Yeah it was," I agreed, but explained how well mom seemed to take it. Then what she had said after I'd kissed Claire goodbye.

"Holy shit, Amelia with the unexpectedq insight and empathy," Kip said, with sincere admiration.

"I know," I told him. "But I'm still afraid the other shoe is going to drop."

I told him about how quiet and distant she had gotten after asking Claire's age.

"That's such a strange thing for her to get hung up on," Kip observed, he seemed genuinely flummoxed. "But I totally get why you're wary."

"Maybe I'm selling her short..."

"What does Claire think?"

"I haven't told her?"

"Aww... Trust Issues," Kip teases, using an old and hated nickname.

"Don't call me that!"

"Why not, Trust Issues?"

"Seriously, that's not what this is about... and I was fucking right not to trust William!"

"True... that guy sucked. You know I nearly had him beat up?"

"What? Really?"

"I came close."

"How? What are you a gangster?"

"I'm a sports writer, Sarah Beth, I know very... physical people."

"You're joking..." I said, giving him a suspicious look. I really couldn't tell if he was. "I never want you to do something like that, Kip... seriously. But, I will admit, it makes me happy that you maybe wanted to."

"So why don't you want to tell Claire?"

"I told her about not hiding smoke, but the whole age thing is weird enough for the two of us, I don't want to make it worse."

"Mmm... that's real I guess. Why not ask Amelia?"

"I don't know."

"She absorbed a pretty big shock with a surprising level of grace. Maybe give her a chance to explain herself?"

"Do you really think they let him lick their soles?"

"You're changing the subject."

"I am."

"They totally let him lick the bottom of their shoes."

As I left the park I sent Claire a text, telling her we are meeting Kip and the Bobs at his place tomorrow morning at 9, that the Bobs are in town to see a show and want us to go.

It's some kind of dinner theater at Joe's Pub - cabaret. Kip is getting us tickets.

fun! what's it called?

not sure? Kip said it stars someone called Amber Martin and John Camron somebody? I can't remember - I'll find out.

whatever, tell him yes! We'll meet at sushi tonight and stay downtown this weekend. Bring a weekend bag with you. Your beach stuff and whatever else.

'"Downtown," not "my place" - that was enough to give me a thrill. I stood staring at the words while I waited for the light to change.

I imagined what it would be like to have Claire stay "uptown" - greeting her after work, making dinner for her, going to bed with her each night... I thought again of her fantasy about The Bitch, the way she talked about telling me to lick her cunt, and how I did it without hesitation while The Bitch watched.

"I would," I had told her, so excited by the idea. But more exciting was how quickly Claire had answered.