Wicked Ch. 06

Fuck Dom! Fuck Alice, and fuck me.

It took her all her willpower just to rise.

One foot in front of the other. Come on.

With a sudden resolve she strode to the sofa and sank between Alice and Dan, wiggling her ass playfully, pushing them aside. "I wanna play too."

"But you never play Scrabble, Mom."

"Hah, just so you know, sweetie, in high school, I've been captain of the Scrabble team. Now give me the dice, my turn to roll."

"There are no dice in Scrabble, Mom."

"I knew that."

"Daaad."

"Hey!" Dan said. "Play nice." His face was a mix of shock and confusion, but there was a tiny smile forming too. "Let's ... let's ... ah ... let's make Mommy feel welcome and give her a big hurray for sportsmanship. Hip, hip...."

"Hurray," Liana mumbled from Dan's lap.

Ana placed her hand on his thigh and squeezed. She heard him gasp sharply and a tiny smile escaped her beautiful lips.

"I want to wear the white dress with the butterflies, Mommy," Liana said.

"But you already showered."

"Noooo. Not right now, for the wedding."

"Grandma already bought you a new dress." Ana kissed her daughter's tummy. She allowed her lips to slide as if by accident on her husband's palm.

"But I want the butterflies dress."

"Wait till you see the dress Granny bought you. You're going to be the most beautiful flower girl ever. I think you should wear the onyx tux, Dan."

"I ... I don't think it's gonna, you know, fit, unless I'll stop breathing for the entire evening."

She smiled softly and scanned him from head to toe, letting him know his diet and new healthier lifestyle hadn't gone unnoticed. "I think it will. You can have my green Jovani, Alice, it's a sure head-spinner, even sitting down."

"Very funny."

"We can find you something else if you don't like it."

"I'm not going, Ana."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You'll have to drag me."

"Okay."

"Ana, I'm serious -- "

"So am I."

"I won't open this can in front of the kids," Alice said.

"So don't. Look, sweetie, it's very simple. Everyone is expecting you to be at your brother's wedding. Now if you can decide to be a grownup, everyone will be happier. If not, then not. Either way you are coming."

"Marianna Jacobson," Alice's face reddened, "I know you think you take turns with God, running the universe, but --"

"Who's Marianna?" Tom jumped.

"That would be your Mom," Dan said.

"What?"

"Ana is short for Marianna, after your great-grandma."

"Get out of here, Mom. You're gonna tell me you've been a Russian all these years?"

That sent the room into another uncontrolled burst of laughter. Even Alice joined but it was clear her heart wasn't in it.

@@@@@@@@@

Dan started his day at 5 AM with a two-hour Golden Gloves Club practice. It proved to be a mistake. He and Mahmud spent the first half of the rest of the day breaking walls with sledgehammers, and the second half transferring the piles of rubble on their backs. Between breaking and pulling he had managed to hire a crew of cement workers, lay off and call the police on a truck driver who had turned out to be an iron thief, quarrel with several contractors over the phone, and fill his schedule with so many job interviews and meetings he'd be able to squeeze in two minutes to take a leak, somewhere in December.

His gamble with Mahmud had paid off, big-time. The kid had stopped him from falling on his ass on several occasions. Plus, people tended to think Mahmud was as smart and observant as a concrete mixer. He was really good at not being there, and that's how he caught the truck driver ten minutes before the asshole took off into the sunset with forty thousand dollars' worth of structural steel.

It was physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. At 10 AM he felt ready to die; at 2 PM he was ready to die and take everyone at the site with him to an early grave. By 7 PM, he was willing to settle for a hot bath. However, Ana had gone with her brother Ilan to a caterer's private tasting; in quest of the perfect hors d'oeuvres, dinner, and desserts, for the wedding. This meant that after a long day Dan still had to make dinner, and bathe and put the kids to bed. By 9 PM, he was willing to settle for a short, semi-warm shower, but then the phone started ringing every time he reached for the soap.

"So I really appreciate the offer, Amir, but I got to say no. Yeah, I'm sure, sorry. I'll be in touch, really; good luck, man. Bye." Dan looked down at the kitchen floor. He was standing in a puddle of his own making. Without giving it too much thought, he dropped the big towel he had around his waist and started it soaking up the wet from the tiles.

"Nice butt," Alice said. "Someone's been working out a lot."

"Fuck!" Dan dove to retrieve the towel, almost crashing, head-on, with the floor. "How long have you been sitting here?"

"Long enough to hear you turn down your former boss. Why'd you do that?"

"Maybe because I already have a job."

"Come on, Rachel Guttmann can't be paying you more than a high-tech management salary can offer."

Dan looked at her then shrugged. "Less than a half."

"Are you nuts? Ana would freak out."

"I don't care."

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm tired of moving bits and bytes, and solving invented problems. And I'm tired of getting the boot every recession. And you know what? For the first time in my life, I feel like what I do actually counts. That feels really good."

Alice nodded her agreement.

"What? That's it? No sarcasm, no smart remarks? You feeling okay?"

She looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, then twisted her mouth, "Nothing pops. Consider yourself outwitted, if it helps. How about my --?"

"Already told you, the answer is no."

"Come on."

"I'm not giving you a shower."

"Please. I've got so much grease in my hair I won't be needing the wheelchair soon. You could just flip me on my head and slide me around."

"Should have thought of that before you scared away the Social Security nurse. Why did you have to tell her that she ate pork?"

"I had to stop her from gobbling everything in the fridge, somehow." She pushed the joystick on her wheelchair. It shot forward and when she was near Dan she grabbed his towel and tried to pull it. He held on, like a virgin protecting her innocence, and she had to give up. "I was only worried you'll have nothing left to eat when you come home."

"Why? Why do you always have to be so mean to everyone? You know, for once in your life you could ... sorry? Do I bore you?"

"Nah, I always yawn when I'm interested. Go on."

"I'm not giving you a shower."

"Please."

"It's inappropriate," Dan said.

"Do you use hygienic soap for your vagina, Dan?"

"Maybe Ana can give you a shower when she comes home with the kids."

"Yeah, right, that's really gonna happen."

"Maybe not." He tied the towel around his waist, but kept his hand on it in case she tried to grab it again. Life with Alice was a bit like going back to high school: you had to keep on your toes as the school's blond, sexy-legged, bully could strike at any time. "But you're gonna help me, Alice."

"As if."

"I've got this friend, a photographer, well not a professional, but she's really got talent."

Alice sat up in the wheelchair, suddenly interested. "A female friend? Someone I know?"

"She's really talented," he said.

"You said that already."

"And I thought, well, this is what you do for a living, don't you? You connect the talented people with the gallery people or ... the museum people or whatever.... Sorry that I never.... Anyway, maybe with your connections, you can help her sell a few photos?"

"Does she have a name, this photographer?"

"Irit."

"You're shitting me not." She opened her green eyes wide. She stared at him, and her surprise turned to something else. Dan thought he saw lines of disappointment, but he wasn't really sure. Why would Alice even care?

"So Irit is actually a real person," she said.

"You and Ana talk a lot, don't you?"

"Not so much, lately. You really went for the horizontal mambo with someone.... Wow."

"Know what? Forget it." He strode back to the bedroom, feeling like a drama queen and hating Alice for it. He was getting into his training pants and undershirt when she drove into the room in her electric wheelchair.

"Come on, Dan."

"It's none of your fucking business."

"Okay."

"Funny thing is, I never even slept with her. I swear to God, I couldn't."

"Okay."

"I never slept with her -- I.... What do you mean, 'okay'?"

"I believe you."

He searched her perfect doll face for sarcasm and could find none. "We've never done anything. I just ... I asked her to give me hickeys so that Ana would get jealous."

"That turned out well, didn't it?"

"Yeah," he buried his face in his palms. "I fucked up my life real good, didn't I?"

She was silent for a few moments and then he felt her hand touching lightly on his shoulder. "Come on, let me see some samples of what she can do. I'll see if it's worth anything."

@@@@@@@@

"So, what's the verdict?"

"Shush, can't you see I'm working, here?" She sat with the tablet on her knees, scanning through the samples. She took her time with each photo, enlarging parts, like Harrison Ford in Bladerunner trying to analyze a crime scene. From time to time, she would go back to one she had already seen, and the analyzing would start all over again. Dan watched, mesmerized. It was a new experience, to see her so serious and in control of what she was doing.

"You know, it's really difficult looking at photos like this without any coffee.... Latte, no cream, and I like the way you write things in the froth."

"Anything else, Sheikh Alice?"

"A neck rub would be nice."

He came back with the coffee and found her with the tablet turned off. "Well?"

"Well ... extremely talented with a great future in photography, she's not." Alice laughed when the disappointed puppy look took over his face. "Oh, you're just too easy. I'm fucking with you, Dan. She's actually good, surprisingly very good. Excellent eye, raw talent, she catches the drama with a sense of humor too; that's always good."

"So you think she could sell any of these?"

"Is she some mousey, high-tech girl?"

"Nope, not really. She's ..." he hesitated, then shrugged his big shoulders, "she was a prostitute when I met her."

"A hooker? Seriously?"

"She's not anymore. So you think she could make money out of photography?"

"Get the fuck off, Dan. I'm not telling you anything until you tell me everything."

So he did. He sat down and told Alice everything that had happened since the fateful day when he had gone out, looking for revenge, and instead had found the sympathetic ear of a working girl. He only skipped the parts that included Ana, because even two months later it was still too painful to talk about. He also kept to himself about the night Irit had come to his bed. For the very first time since he had known her, his sister-in-law sat down quietly and didn't interrupt once, even when he paused.

"That's ... wow. You did all that? That's totally off the charts. What the hell were you thinking?" She stared at him as if he was some green Martian that just popped into Tel Aviv, for some coffee and an anal probe. "What were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed. And who brings a girl like that home?"

"I couldn't think of any other solution."

"Wow, you're a real idiot; I mean, your heart is in the right place, but your brain...." She twisted an imaginary screw against her forehead.

"So you think you might be able to help her sell her photos?"

"I might have. But, alas!" She gave a theatrical sigh that wouldn't have shamed a Metropolitan Opera House performer. "There's grease in my hair that's keeping my creativity and goodwill down. If there was only some way to get it off."

"Oh, come on."

@@@@@@@@@

"Put more heart in it, sugar, that's right ... Mmmmm, Dan, that feels sooo good, yes, yes, oh, yes, yes, oh god, oh yes." Alice tried the When Harry Met Sally restaurant scene.

"Shut up."

She laughed.

"You're so enjoying this," he said.

"This's more action than I had in two months."

"No, you're enjoying yourself because it really makes me edgy, that's why."

"You nailed it. Lower, please."

"You're a bully, Alice; heart and soul."

"Lower."

"I'm not touching your boobs."

"Hey, that one went in my eye."

Dan dabbed her eye with a towel. "Sorry."

"Can't you do this with your eyes open? Jeez, you take me to the toilets twice a day, you've already seen everything that there is to see, a million times."

"Alice, you took your clothes off on the front page of Woman's Journal. Everyone in Israel has seen everything that there is to see. "

"So?"

"It's still inappropriate," Dan said.

"Do you still get regular menstruation or did you reach menopause? You know what? You're not a nerd, you're a hypocrite."

"Am not."

"Are too," Alice laughed happily, and tilted her head back.

He had peeked. How many times in your life do you get to shower with someone whom the newspapers once described as the 'Israeli answer to Kate Moss'? Like Ana, Alice had won her perfect bronze complexion from her mom's Moroccan side of the family. The contrast it made with her Ukrainian side's blonde hair and cat-like green eyes could cause the human heart some serious bleeding. Which it had done, many times.

She sat in a chair Dan had placed in the tub, her left leg lay elevated over the side to rest on another chair, preventing her cast from getting wet. For that reason alone, Dan kept himself behind her. He knew that if he stepped forward he'd get a marvelous view that, other than her gynecologist, few had ever seen.

Her hair had grown an inch in two months, and he marveled at its Japanese-doll quality, as he worked in the shampoo. He braced one hand against her forehead so water wouldn't flow in the direction of her body and legs. Her right leg still showed semi-healed scar tissue that was sensitive to hot temperature and would need, in future, plastic surgery to vanish completely. Every time he opened his eyes, he tried very hard not to stare at her boobs. They were perfect; grapefruit-sized spheres, symmetrical, and firm. She had never used them for breastfeeding and had added silicon a few years back.

Alice had started humming a happy tune then stopped, surrendering completely to his touch. It felt really good and also he seemed more relaxed now, so annoying him would probably produce a less-than-desirable effect. She had become so quiet, in fact, that he had opened his eyes to see if everything was all right, and regretted it immediately; Alice was rubbing soap between her legs.

"Huh? Did you say something, Dan?"

Don't look back, don't look back, don't look back.

"I need to shave my armpits, this is really getting gross."

Don't look back, don't look back, please. Dead decaying bodies, vomit, dog poop, fresh squishy dog poop on the heel of my shoe, rotten yellow black teeth, Grandma Jacobson in a nightgown.

"I need some triangle trimming too. It's becoming a jungle down there."

I had to wear boxers, didn't I? Zit-popping. Huge, red, bursting, zit on the belly of an obese, smelly guy. Garbage bag tearing, garbage juice dripping. Cockroaches. Intestines. Cockroaches swimming inside intestine juice. Fresh boogers. Justin Bieber.

Thank god for small favors, she hadn't looked back and thus hadn't seen his huge erection. Dan wrapped her body with two heavy towels and picked her up, gently. Like Ana she was lithe, but there was a lot of that litheness, six-feet-plus.

"Seriously, Dan, give me your honest opinion, as a male. Hypothetically speaking, let's say you're not married to my sister. If you met me in a pub, I mean the way I look right now. If you saw me, would you buy me a drink?"

"If I saw you like this in a pub I would suggest more clothes before anything else."

"And the dork-of-the-year award goes to: ta-tam, ta-tam, Dan Jacobson."

"Oh, wow, thank you, thank you, thank you. I would like to thank Mom and Dad and my third grade Arabic teacher, Mrs. Saiid." He tried his best imitation of smarm, but it sounded more like Marlon Brando in The Godfather. "This is a big moment for me, folks, Mom, Dad, academy people of Dork-Town, and especially my in-law, Alice; you taught me that a day without making someone wish murder wasn't a capital offense, is a day wasted. Thank you for so many little moments of misanthropy. I'll cherish them all."

Alice stared at him for a second with a straight face, then her laughter rolled like fresh drops of happiness. Dan joined her, breathing deeply in relief.

"Fucking nurse from the fucking Social Security, Jesus, I've never seen something so big running so fast," he wiped tears from his eyes on her towel and then noticed that she stopped laughing.

She stared at him, eyes wide for a second, her lips curled in a half-smile or maybe it was something else. Then she wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled his lips to hers. She inhaled hard, tasted him a little and felt his aftershave tickle her nose. Her lips brushed his, waiting for him for two seconds or her entire life; she wasn't sure which. Waiting, waiting, and then waiting some more in brittle anticipation, until nothing happened. Dan pulled back, gently. She opened her eyes, saw the shock registered on his handsome face, and wanted to die.

"I made her run for the hills, didn't I?" she tried to smile and failed miserably.

"Yeah."

It was only a few steps to her bedroom, but they lasted an eternity.

He laid her down on the bed, gently. "Do you ... you need anything else?"

"No, I've got everything here, thanks." She tried to control her breathing, it didn't work. She stared at the door for a long time after Dan had left, her perfect bosom heaving, up and down. She felt herself slipping off her rope, and her abyss had never looked so close. She caught her own image in the mirror. The blonde, feral girl stared back at her, eyes wide with humiliation and regret. She picked up the plastic coffee cup and hurled it at the mirror. "You ungrateful, fucking, backstabbing, slut!"

@@@@@@@@

"I don't know." Ilan's mouth twisted sideways. He picked another tiny portion of the foie gras, smelled it, and dropped it on the tip of his tongue. "It's too liquid-y."

"Tastes super awesome to me," Ana said.

"I don't know, maybe another dish, Sean?"

Sean picked up the duck liver from Ilan's plate, gave it a healthy bite and washed it down with a Pinot Noir. "Look, Ilan," he said. "It's a hundred o'clock already. You have seven hundred guests. I need to order the ingredients at least a week in advance. So I need a 'clear-cut' and I need it now. Drag it another day and you'll have to settle for falafel and hummus as your wedding's opening dish. And by the way, the foie gras is excellent."

"I don't know."

"I need you to know." Sean caught Ana ogling him and gave her a wink.

She blushed and tried not to stare; it wasn't easy to do.

"You know what? Screw this." Ilan rose from his seat. "I'm late for a meeting. I don't want to decide. I'll leave you with my sister, whatever she says, goes; including the final price."

"Come on, Ilan, it's your funeral, not hers."

"Sean is right," Ana said.

"He's not right, he's just scared, Ana." Ilan smiled. "He already figured you're not someone he can butter up. Make sure you cut down at least twenty percent on any price he gives you."

"She can't. I'm not buttering up anyone and the price for each dish is pre-set, non-negotiable, man."

Ilan laid a comforting hand on Sean's shoulder. "I know that when you heard the name Ofek White you figured a heavy purse; you were right. But don't mistake the Whites for suckers. The foie gras is too liquid-y."