Chapter Three Kim #3
In fact, fuck Kim. She was going to find one good thing about her, goddammit, even if she was a despicable harpy.
Maybe the harsh, judgmental affect was only a facade, something to protect the fragile, broken little girl she had been as a child.
Jane imagined Kim’s mother was a sour, cynical woman with no kind words ever, a temperament she bestowed onto her unfortunate daughter.
And then Jane thought about her own mother.
The lines between all of them were blurring, and it was too much.
She willed herself to stop thinking about any of it, and redirected to the task at hand, finding one good thing about Kim.
After some fraught deliberation, Jane decided the only positive thing she could unequivocally stipulate about Kim was that she would never have to see her, or her ostentatious Buddha, ever again.
Jane was looking forward to unwinding with Teddy when she got home.
Sometimes Teddy joked that Jane was as bad as people like Kim—always busy busy busy.
He said she lived her life on fast-forward, impatient to get through whatever she was doing so she could tackle the next task.
And sometimes, she was afraid he was right.
Jane had noticed Teddy’s talent for being in the moment soon after they began dating.
Before their third date, Jane felt a flutter of anticipation because of the universally acknowledged truth, the Rule of Three, which dictated that not only was it acceptable to sleep with someone on the third date, you really should, in order to gauge if the relationship had any future.
So Jane had come to her third date with Teddy prepared—she had even consulted Anna about which underwear and bra she should wear under her jeans and blouse.
Anna suggested toeing the very fine line between “hard to get” and “up for anything” with a matching set from Victoria’s Secret—black, of course, because red was on the cusp of overeager and promiscuous, and pink or white would be too docile, too faux-virginal.
They went to a movie, one of those thrillers reputed to be adult and sophisticated that Jane found predictable and banal.
This was a hazard of working in entertainment: rather than enjoying what she was watching, she was always analyzing, looking for ways to improve it.
Like she did with everything in her life, really.
Meanwhile, Teddy was enthralled, absentmindedly munching popcorn that reeked of coconut oil.
She rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe that would help her see the movie through his eyes, and she’d enjoy it more.
This didn’t work, but it felt good nonetheless.
She’d planned to invite him in when he dropped her off at her apartment in Los Feliz. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid and fuck. She knew how ridiculous this sounded as she thought it—but still, best to get it over with, to know what it would be like.
“Would you like to come in?”
Teddy nuzzled her ear. “You sound... unsure.”
“No! No, I mean... it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“This is the third date.” It was as if he were reading her mind, though of course men as well as women knew about this Rule of Three.
“Oh, I know. But still, it wouldn’t mean anything.” Why did she keep saying it wouldn’t mean anything ?
“What if I want it to mean something?” he asked. The husky timbre of his voice was very arousing.
“So you don’t want to come in?”
“I do, but you don’t seem super relaxed, so—”
“I am never relaxed!”
Teddy laughed. “Yeah, I picked up on that. But I want you to be. At least with me. We don’t need to rush anything because I want to see you again.”
Teddy looked so earnest, and so irresistibly adorable when he said this, that Jane’s whole body slackened, and she felt blissfully relaxed. They weren’t playing a game with rules about the third date. There was no timeline, no deadline. She could simply be.
“That’s sweet, Teddy. I want to see you again, too.”
They made out for a while before he drove off. She went to bed and dreamed of Teddy.
For their next date, they met in Griffith Park late on a Saturday morning for a hike. It was a perfect day, sunny but not too hot, so the park was teeming with people—picnickers, exercisers, sunbathers. Lots of families having birthday parties for their kids.
Jane had planned on a proper hike, not a stroll.
She wanted to break a sweat, get her blood pumping, burn some calories.
It was a date and a cardio workout at the same time.
A multitasker’s dream. Jane trod the trail with determination and an eye on her steps while Teddy loped alongside her, rather effortlessly—almost annoyingly effortlessly.
When he stopped to make a funny face at a child, or to take in a view, Jane would pause only for a moment before forging ahead.
“What’s the rush?”
“No rush, just want to keep it moving.”
When they reached the Observatory, Teddy took lots of pictures on his phone.
The normal blanket of mucky smog and haze had lifted, so the vistas were impressive.
He took some of Jane, who protested she wasn’t camera ready, and then insisted on some selfies of the two of them.
Jane demanded that she be given photo approval, so he handed her his phone.
As she scrutinized the pictures, she was surprised by how relaxed and happy she looked, even with her sheen of sweat and flushed cheeks.
And Teddy just exuded delight. She didn’t delete any of them.
For lunch, they picked up food from a taco stand and took it back to Jane’s apartment. They sat on her couch, eating off the coffee table, sipping cold Modelo Negra right out of the bottle. Afterward, Teddy asked if they should shower, as they’d both worked up a sweat.
Getting naked in the full light of day made Jane feel so vulnerable. As they showered together, she noticed how comfortable Teddy was in his own skin. It was so intimate, so sensual. They toweled each other off, and then moved to her bedroom.
Jane drew all the blinds and curtains to diffuse the light. Like he seemed to do with everything, Teddy took his time. She felt so tingly and relaxed afterward that she fell sound asleep in the crook of his arm.
And then, to Jane’s shock, they stayed in bed for the remainder of the afternoon.
They ordered dinner in, ate at her tiny kitchen table, and then went back to bed.
They watched dumb reality television while laughing and caressing each other.
He asked if she was cool with him spending the night, and without hesitation, she said, “Sure.”
Given the adjustment to sharing a bed with someone new, she’d slept surprisingly well. The next morning, she got out of bed carefully, so as not to rouse him. Teddy looked so sweet and innocent when he was sleeping.
He walked into the kitchen while the coffee was brewing. “Do you want to go out for breakfast?”
“No, Teddy, sorry, I have so much reading to get through today.”
She had a stack of scripts on her computer that she needed to plow through, since it was her job to foster the illusion that her illiterate boss was literate.
“What happens if you don’t do it?”
“Well, maybe I lose my job.”
“No you don’t. For one tiny infraction? Not buying it.”
“But I want to do it. I mean, it’s my work. I want to do a good job.”
“Let’s go get some pastry and talk about it some more.”
So they went out and got a box of buttery pastries, eating most of them during the short car ride back.
They were light and airy and shattered when you bit into them, sending floury shards all over Teddy’s car.
Jane said they could vacuum them up when they got back to her place, but he didn’t want to bother.
Instead, they went right back to bed. Either he was irresistible, or she really didn’t want to read all those stupid scripts.
They spent all day Sunday together. He wanted to cook, so they bought groceries. He made surprisingly good hamburgers; she made a green salad with a tart vinaigrette.
When they finally parted ways, Jane realized she hadn’t even thought about those scripts. She was so sleepy, in the best possible way, and decided, for once, to blow it off. Her boss was incompetent and she could cover easily.
As their relationship progressed, Jane would allot time slots for Teddy, usually thirty-six hours, with clearly stipulated start and end times, so that their spontaneous, hedonistic idylls wouldn’t result in the rest of her life unraveling.
Too much fun was treacherous. Teddy was amused by her punctiliousness, and something about the challenge of the time frame appealed to him.
Especially after an aggravating day like today, Teddy would be a welcome solace.
He would erase any residual thoughts about that harridan Kim.
Maybe Teddy was cooking dinner. They could eat and then go right to bed to have sex and then watch mindless television—restorative indolence that she needed right now.
But quiet was not to be had. As soon as she opened the door, she heard Teddy and Keith jamming.
They played guitar and loved the sound of their own singing.
The joy in their voices, in the right circumstances, could be contagious.
She admired the unselfconscious pleasure they took in this, even envied it.
It could all really be fun sometimes, but not this evening.
Teddy gave her a bear hug and a kiss.
“You’re back early, Jay.”
“Yeah... the job ended early.”
“Hard day, huh?”
Was it written on her face? God, she should get Botox and erase any evidence of emotion.
Like Kim. Dear god. Maybe a lobotomy would be the way to go—smooth out the brain and the brow in one fell swoop.
Lobotomies were shockingly low-tech. She had seen a documentary about them; they were the rage in the forties.