Chapter Seven
Lola texted the next morning: Izzy saw u and yr prom date at the fireworks last nt
I replied: Who’s Izzy?
Lola: Not the point
Me: He was not my prom date.
Lola sent an emoji of two yellow people holding hands.
Me: Who is that supposed to be?
Lola: u and yr prom date
Me: He was not my prom date. And those people look nothing like either of us.
Lola sent an emoji rolling its eyes.
Me: I don’t know what that means.
Lola: Emojis aren’t photos and u don’t need periods at end of texts
Me: Punctuation is important.
Lola: Izzy says u and prom date were super cute
Me: No.
Lola: Lovey dovey
She followed this with eight lines of birds, hearts, lips, various fruits and vegetables, a couple of skulls, and a smiley face with jazz hands.
Me: I don’t know what that means.
Lola: u and ur prom date super cute
That afternoon Moth and I went for a walk.
If this all sounds very high school, it is not because he was my prom date.
It is not because we met washing a car and talking about fundraisers for school clubs.
It is not (as the record will soon show) because we were chaste and prudish.
In fact, I would point out that teenagers, by and large, aren’t either.
They go for walks or to the park or out for ice cream at the shop near their homes because they don’t have a car.
Old people do the same for the same reason.
On the way back inside, we were stopped by Deanna at the front desk. “I hear you two are great car washers.”
“You do?” I was surprised by this.
“Practically holy, I’m told. What do you charge?”
“We’re not professionals.” I felt silly even explaining this.
“We only wash cars for fun,” Moth said.
“Or relaxation,” I added.
“Or to flirt with our neighbors.” He winked at me.
“I’m parked next to the garden,” said Deanna. “You won’t even have to move the hoses.”
So we washed Deanna’s car, a little hatchback Honda of some sort, not nearly as big or dirty as Father Frank’s truck, because Deanna greeted everyone by name and with a smile, and when was the last time anyone had returned the favor?
Also because dates and fireworks and sharing life stories—not to mention literature and kissing—had a sort of hot-and-bothered effect.
Whereas car washing is cool and calming.
Like a spa with one of those cold plunges.
While we worked, Moth sang—off-key—songs about cars, songs about water, songs about washing, and songs about none of those things with the words changed so as to be on topic. For example:
Puff the Magic Car Washer
Knew he wasn’t old
And proved it with a hose and sponge
To muck out the manifold
When we were done, Deanna was delighted.
We received her thanks, refused her money, and ascended to the seventh floor.
I couldn’t even look at him because it was embarrassing to be smiling as hard as we both were.
We were giddy because we’d made Deanna happy, and satisfied from a job well done.
We were damp from hoses that weren’t well aimed and, truthfully, hoses that were.
We were breathless from all our hard work, or maybe that wasn’t why.
My skin was warm, my mouth dry, my heart fluttering.
Ordinarily, these symptoms were cause for alarm, but it was clear we were moving beyond ordinary.
That’s where it all started.
When we got to our respective front doors, he came inside my apartment with me instead.
No discussion. It was so obvious there was no need—no point—in articulating it.
One thing led to another. This is a saying I have never liked, the city mouse equivalent of “Blah blah blah,” a rhetorical device Lola often employs when telling stories which roughly translates to “This is the embarrassing and/or implicating bit, so I’m just going to skip it and hope you don’t notice. ”
But in this case, one thing leading to another is exactly what happened.
No one wants to hear about this part, I know.
But I have to say I don’t know why. There’s no shortage of interest in sex.
Flip through any magazine, and you’ll see sex selling beer, ice cream, cars, watches, shoes, even deodorant, even dog food.
Watch TV for an hour and you’ll see sex between criminals, strangers, apparently intelligent co-workers who should know better, feuding neighbors, what Lola calls “frenemies,” what Lola calls “throuples,” teachers and students, constables and chief inspectors, girls and their friends’ dads, and literal nuns.
Whereas this was just normal sex between consenting adults, old enough to decide, old enough for a lot of things, not advertising anything nor married to anyone nor employed by one another (nor, I hope it goes without saying, nuns).
When I looked back later, it did seem like something you’d see on TV (with younger, prettier people, admittedly, but that’s true of everything you see on TV).
When I looked back later, it seemed like something that had never happened before in quite the same way to any two people in the history of the world.
We came inside and closed the door behind us.
I thought to offer him something warm to drink.
I thought to say something about getting out of wet clothes.
I split the difference with “Are you hungry? Be nice to have something homemade for dinner for a change,” but I didn’t get even as far as the refrigerator before we were kissing again.
At first it was just little kisses like I get from my grandchildren.
Then, quickly, it became kisses quite unlike the ones I get from my grandchildren.
For a while I considered how, even after so many years, having someone else’s tongue in your mouth seemed like it would be gross but was not.
Then for a while I considered how much more pleasant a lip was without a mustache (as I say, Roger is enamored of his hair).
Then I stopped considering anything at all.
I felt Moth’s hands at the sides of my face gently pushing me away.
“Too much?” I asked.
He lowered his glasses from their perch on his head. “I wanted to see your eyes.”
“Why?” I tried to make them appear worthy, but honestly, there’s not a lot you can do about your eyes.
“To make sure you’re enjoying this.”
“I’d let you know if I weren’t,” I said.
“To make sure you think it’s a good idea.”
“What’s a good idea?”
“What’s going to happen next.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
“I have no idea,” he said. This was true. For both of us. We had no idea.
“I have an idea,” I said.
What can I say? We weren’t in a rush. I remembered how frenzied it all used to be, ripping off clothes, slamming into walls, absolutely having to do it on the floor because you couldn’t possibly wait the extra ten feet for the bed.
All of it seemed absurd now. It was all so rare and lovely.
Why wouldn’t you want it to go as slowly as possible?
The answer to that question, once upon a time, was that Roger and I had waited until we were married.
We weren’t prudes—more people did back then—but all that waiting led to a few years of wall-slamming and clothes-ripping because there just couldn’t be any more delays.
We had waited so long and for what? It led to a few years of rushed sex and then a few years of too little sex—little children instead—and then a few years of no sex, sex having been replaced by anger, resentment, festering.
All that waiting didn’t protect, didn’t sanctify, our union or our family or our love.
And who had time for waiting anymore anyway?
We got as far as the bedroom before I pulled apart from him. “I’m not sure—” I began.
“Then let’s not—” he said right away.
“I’m not sure I remember how,” I finished.
“Oh.” My face felt warm under his hands. “I think it’s like riding a bicycle.”
“You never fall off?”
“No, sometimes you fall off.” He smiled. “You never forget.”
What I’d told each of my children was that unless it was with someone you really liked, sex was kind of gross.
I’d waited until they were teenagers, until I could see that they were contemplating it more than idly.
Then I took each aside and explained. Sex was great if you were in a loving relationship with someone you genuinely cared for, who genuinely cared for you.
It was. But it was also wet. It was sticky.
It was all very desperate during, but it didn’t last long, and then it was over in an instant followed by a great deal of awkwardness because then you had to lie around damp and drippy and naked and think of things to say to each other.
I had never quite experienced this myself since I had waited till I was married—sex with Roger didn’t get awkward until later—but I couldn’t see how it could fail to be true.
Teenagers were so weird together anyway; surely it had to be worse postcoitally.
But it turned out I was wrong. Or maybe I was right, but it was different for retirees than for teenagers.
Or possibly I genuinely cared for Moth very much already.
We went slowly. He stroked my neck and then my collarbone through my top for an age before he moved lower and then for another age before he ventured to remove it.
I undid his shirt one button per quarter hour.
We lingered over what we found beneath. His shoulder blades felt like furled wings under my fingers.
My arms prickled with chill—or maybe surprise.
He fumbled at my bra like a teenager before finally giving up.
“Arthritis,” he admitted, “or maybe the technology’s changed.” So I undid the clasp myself.
“Remember what’s there and what’s … not,” I reminded him gently.
He nodded, bright-eyed, undaunted. “You,” he said.
And this was true. Some of me was there. Some of me was not. That was true for both of us, in fact. That was as much as you could have at our age. Maybe at any age, at least any age at which you were old enough to be doing what we were doing.
I let down one strap, then the other, then pulled the cups away in the palms of both hands.
My scars have faded after so many years.
My doctors had wanted to do reconstructive surgery at the time, but by that point, I would have given anything never to undergo another medical procedure ever again.
And I didn’t have to give anything. I just had to live with the absence, with the scars, which of course I had to do regardless.
Now I had spent many more years without breasts than with them.
Now so much of my body was different than it had been at thirty-five anyway.
This is true for everyone lucky enough to live into their seventies, not just me.
So I had stopped cataloging the absences at some point.
Now, though, I worried it might be off-putting, upsetting even, either because of Louisa and the scars he carried himself or because of my failure—as ever, and more and more each year—to look like a supermodel.
It had also been a long time since I’d had to worry about it, and I was out of practice.
For years when I was young, this had seemed like a great personal failing, like it was appalling of me to be walking around not tall enough or thin enough or tempting enough, figure insufficiently curved, cheekbones insufficiently high, hair insufficiently shiny and smooth.
Vista View was a great leveler on this front.
No matter how near we’d managed to get to ideal once upon a time, none of us even came close anymore.
In fact, no one looked at us at all these days, which, as any woman in the world can tell you, might be a mixed one but is certainly a blessing.
I thought I’d feel embarrassed at being naked with a man I hadn’t known a week ago, self-conscious about my wrinkles and rolls, what swelled too far and what didn’t swell enough.
But I wasn’t. Some of it was the pure wonder on his face.
He was full of joy. Some of it was the light tremor of his fingers as he traced them over me.
Our skin was topographical, our bodies marked, our fingers no longer nimble or even straight. We shared that. We shared everything.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s true that as we progressed there were some mechanical challenges. That was okay, though. We waited them out. We had nowhere else to be. Eventually, the sun came up. Eventually, we got it exactly right.
After, it was a little sticky and a little damp.
But it was the opposite of awkward. As I lay against the side of his chest, his arms around me, his skin pooling downward a bit with the pressure from my cheek, I wondered how I’d ever imagined it was a good idea to give this up for so many years.
You were warned constantly about pressure in the chest, tingling in the extremities, language suddenly out of reach, soul suddenly out of body.
But in the event, I found it all unspeakably wonderful.
“A shower perhaps?” he offered finally.
“Together?”
“There’s a seat in there. And a handle. And then supper maybe?”
“It’s seven in the morning,” I said. “Too early.”
“We never got to it last night. It’s not too early for supper, it’s too late for supper. And it’s never too late for supper. I have some frozen bits and bobs at mine.”
“But the point was to eat something fresh and homemade.”
“I think the point may have changed,” he said.