Most of the Time: Chapter 1

Dinner she charged on her credit card so Kyle wouldn’t bitch about another unexplainable non-essential expense. She’d pay it off next month from her own account. Besides, it was only fair she paid for dinner, since Jason had bought everything so far the times they’d gone out.

They were crossing the street to the multi-level garage where they’d parked and as they climbed the stairs to the second level, Jason touched her hand briefly, a fumbling caress as they stepped across the almost empty lot. Their voices echoed as they hurried to his car; Halsey knew Tanner’s three hours at the activity center were about up, and she and Jason were downtown, about twenty minutes away, if traffic on the interstate was light. Heavy traffic would take half an hour or longer to get through.

Jason unlocked the door and opened it for her, a gesture that drew an even deeper longing for him than the touch of his hand to hers moments earlier. Inside the car, Halsey turned to him as he was about to switch the ignition and touched his hand and then his chin and drew his mouth to hers for a kiss. She couldn’t stop kissing him. She wanted to drink him, absorb him into her body, take in his whole being. Her breast was out, covered only by the shadow made as they embraced, the nipple a little darker than its natural sienna because of the low white light that washed over the parking garage and his eyes seemed to focus on it as if it were the most precious object he’d had ever seen, and before she covered herself up, his palms cupped her breast, warming it, pressing it close to her heart. Her heart hammered and somehow she felt she had finally connected to the part of herself that was missing.

That morning, as she did every morning, she lay flat against her yoga mat, while Tanner was in his room watching a video and the rat dog was outside snuffling down the fence, smelling the neighbor’s Lab that was in heat on the other side. It was as quiet as it was ever going to get in the house. Her legs were slightly apart, her arms to her side, palms up and fingers half-closed, just as her instruction book had taught. She tensed her left toes and then her left foot. She tensed her right toes and then her right foot.

Yoga was supposed to relax you and as you got better, help you think differently, get in touch with your spirit. It was exercise, but it could also be religious, a part of the spiritual path. Almost every one of her women’s spirituality books recommended it as a beginning to finding your true sense of spirit, of self. This was what she was searching for — a sense of who she was and what she wanted. Something was not right. She could lie there all day, stretch her body as she was supposed to, and not connect to whatever it was that she was supposed to connect to. When she would lie on the mat, at first she would think this would be the thing she needed, she would finally connect to herself, but after a few minutes of stretching and breathing and trying to focus and find that thing, she knew it wasn’t going to happen then. But she knew there was something else, a man possibly, a lover, who’d distract her from this great emptiness falling into her. She had a man. A husband. He’d become part of that emptiness since her son came along. Kyle was hardly a lover anymore. She tried to blame his lack of desire on the weight she’d gained when pregnant, the pouch of flesh that she still had five years after the fact. So she took exercise classes, flattened the pouch somewhat with thousands of crunches, as far as she could get it to go. Still, he hardly touched her. She figured she’d had lost touch with something inside her and he sensed that and that’s why he didn’t want her. And she started reading the spirituality books. Even the month before he went away, when he seemed unusually horny, it was enough for him to plunge inside her, grunt a few times and come. Always, after that, he wouldn’t hold her, was distant, wouldn’t say anything.

But she had a lover — Jason — a man who seemed to want her, more than almost any other man she’d ever loved, and when this man passed Tanner’s open bedroom door he stepped inside the boy’s room and saw her tucking her son into bed; the boy’s eyes were closed and she kissed the boy on the forehead and Jason whispered across the room to her, “Wine?”

The boy turned on his side and tugged the comforter over his shoulder and Jason could see Halsey in her linen skirt and blouse from India floating there like a ghost at the boy’s bedside. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she whispered. While she made sure the boy was asleep, he went into the kitchen and uncorked a bottle of Riesling that had been chilling in the refrigerator. She had bought the wine a few weeks earlier at a wine shop in Fredricksburg, during an “alone time” weekend trip out of Austin. It was a sweet wine; he had never had it before, but she said she drank it all the time when Kyle was stationed in Germany. The glasses Jason poured were cold, sweating. When she came into the living room, he handed her one.“I adore you,” she said. He felt her palm, cool from the glass, against his cheekbone, dragging over the spot where he’d missed a few whiskers shaving that morning; touching him there was becoming sort of a habit of hers. The area of her neck where her open collar touched the skin was flushed. She patted it and he felt where she had touched and it was cool and wet from the glass.In her bedroom again after they had drunk their wine, she placed a hand on his crotch, cupping his balls. Her other hand titled his face to hers, and she kissed him as she had earlier in the car, as if she were some runner at the end of a race sucking down water. Her strokes over his cock were unrestrained. As they intensified, he clutched her side and closed his eyes; nerve synapses jumped into overdrive, connected at new points, hot, capillary-blood-bright like advertisements, a commerce of currents filling him, the orgasm jolting outward, showering his stomach with hot pearls, which she smeared over his stomach, into his pubic hairs. Afterward, she got up from the bed and went into the bathroom and came out carrying a soaking towel and touched it to his skin, the sensitive area just above his pubic hair. His whole body tensed, contracted. She gently swabbed his belly, swirling its hairs and when they dried, they curled into tight spirals. He dozed momentarily, and knew small things like this united them.Awake and alert he said, “We can’t, can’t lose this.”“We’ll be fine.” The suprasternal notch — the hollow spot below the neck. Betsy stopped the movie when Ralph Fiennes said “suprasternal notch.” She felt her own notch, her forefinger dipping into it, then trailing up her throat just as Erica had the night she whispered in her best English accent, “Do you know the official name for this?” “No,” Betsy said, her skin tingling with goose bumps from her lover’s touch. They could never get past that spot in the movie without making love. She rewound the film, watching the counter on the VCR, clicking it to start at the precise moment Fiennes asked the question of Kristin Scott Thomas.

After that, she let the movie run and got up from the couch and went to the fridge and took one of her roommate’s Tecates, figuring she’d be going to the store anyway once Erica arrived, and she’d buy more beer for her roommate. Betsy opened the can and drank. What was the surprise Erica said she had? Erica was coming down for a week before she left for the conference in San Diego. Betsy picked up her cell phone from the kitchen table, where she had left it last night after coming in from Halcyon. Just a few drinks with her roommate’s girlfriend Samantha. A girl’s night out, while Hamad was in Seattle interviewing with Amazon. If Hamad left, she would have to find a new roommate. Another guy, preferably. Maybe single this time. But would you get involved with a roommate? That could only cause trouble.So much for brief distraction. She listened to her voicemail, and there was Erica’s voice floating into her ear like a ghost, telling her what time she’d be arriving that afternoon, and Betsy glanced at the clock; the morning was gone, and it was half past twelve; she had an hour to get ready.The red wall phone in the kitchen bleated loud enough Betsy could hear it from the shower. She came out, wrapped a towel around herself, and dripped into the kitchen to answer the damn thing. Three people had that number — her mom, her brother, and . . . “Hiya,” Betsy heard through the receiver; the voice on the other end was whispery, its cadence thrown off by a breathiness that made it seem as if her nose were stopped up all the time, and making it difficult for her to talk.“Where are you?” Betsy said.“About an hour out.”“So, you’re saying you’ll be here in about an hour?”“ About then, yeah.” They drank through the rest of Hamad’s six-pack while Erica talked about her flight: The guy next to her from Vancouver had the worst coffee breath, and must have drunk three or maybe four cups, never getting up to pee, and he kept talking about covering some band she had never heard of while in Austin. Everyone followed bands these days when they came to Austin. Erica had to listen to this and smell the man’s coffee breath for four hours. It was disgusting. On the couch Betsy had tucked into Erica, and lifted the remote from the coffee table to start the VCR. “I have The English Patient.”“Not yet,” Erica said. “I haven’t told you my surprise.”Betsy paused the VCR. “So, what is it?”“You’re going to San Diego with me.”“Umm . . .”“I have the ticket. It’s paid for. I paid for it.”“How can I?”“It’s summer.”“I still have to work.”

“Take sick time.”

“A whole week? Patrick wouldn’t buy it.”

“Patrick? On first names? You fucking him?”

“No.”

“You are fucking him, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t want to go.”

“No; it’s not. I just can’t.” Betsy rearranged herself so she could face Erica.

“You are,” Erica said. “There’s no arguing about it. Patrick will understand. He can live without you for a week.” She leaned forward and kissed Betsy’s forehead.

Betsy tapped the top of Erica’s shoulder. “Shut up.” She kissed her cheek.

That summer wildfires bit at the hills west of San Diego. In the evenings the couple stood on their hotel balcony and watched old converted World War II bombers fade into the meat-pink sky and spray spumes of chemicals into the sequoias below. Their bare feet were cool against the cement, their bodies wrapped in terrycloth robes, both still flushed from having made love, and Betsy had thought nothing had changed between them, what they had couldn’t be doused out.

It wasn’t going to be like it had been before when Betsy had fallen in love with Dennis and thought she was pregnant by him. Dennis wasn’t a problem for Erica. A baby was, or seemed to be; a baby would take Betsy away from Erica. It had been time for Erica to leave, and she left. Far away. She wouldn’t even be in Austin any more Toto.
Manhattan, Kansas, to work at the university there. As two more planes rumbled overhead, Erica touched Betsy’s shoulder and said, “I’ll be inside, if you want me.” Betsy nodded, and said, “I’ll be in in a minute.”From where she stood on the balcony, holding her robe clutched against her stomach, she heard the planes hammering through the tendrils of black smoke that grabbed at them, and at that distance the engines sounded a lot like her Vespa, the hammering sputter as she let off the clutch and shifted gears to bring the bike to a stop. A stop, usually at Shanto’s, the coffee shop where everyone she knew hung out. Where Erica had been that day a year earlier at their table in the back, with the sun going down, the same pinkish coloring in the sky then as now, but without the black marbling. And Erica had been drinking coffee when she looked up from the paper to see Betsy standing there in her short denim skirt and scuffed leather biker boots, the ones that creaked when she walked in them, and Betsy drew back an empty chair to sit and when she sat, she didn’t bother to say “What’s up?” or some other thing. All she said was “Erica, I think I may be pregnant,” and reached out to touch Erica’s hand.“Betsy.” She looked down and shrugged off Betsy’s hand and began stirring her coffee.“Yes?” “Pregnant?” Erica did not look up. She clinked her spoon against her coffee mug and lifted it to her mouth and drank and then set the cup in its saucer. Some of the coffee lapped onto the saucer.“Yes.” “You’re sure?” “Yes; I’m sure,” Betsy pushed aside the cup and saucer and took both of Erica’s hands, held them palm-down against the table. “Of course I’m sure. I let it happen.”

“You let it happen?”

“I let it happen. I wanted it to happen, Erica. I’ve wanted it to happen for some time now.”“I know we’ve talked about it. I know you’d said you wanted a baby, but that was some time in the future. When we were both ready.”

Erica pulled her hands out from under Betsy’s. “How could you do this, Bets? How?”

“It’s what I wanted.” But even then Betsy knew Erica could not accept a baby. But now there wasn’t anyone, no boyfriend, no child (no pregnancy) to distance them. Betsy was ready for Erica now.Erica was coming out of the bathroom after having just taken a shower and Betsy caught her there in the hallway while putting out food for the cat, and Erica hadn’t bothered wrapping a towel around herself, and there was her copper hair and her pubic hair the same color. Betsy fixed her sight on the copper thatch and Erica stopped and lowered her eyes, gazing at Betsy and smiling. The cat had come up between Betsy’s legs to snatch a bit of food and Erica bent to scratch the cat between the ears.“Oh Miranda,” she said to the cat, “it’s been ages.” Miranda purred audibly, and then, ignoring both of them, bent her head to her food bowl to eat.Erica stayed crouched where she was and leaned close to Betsy’s ear and whispered, “Do you have any wine? A glass of wine would be really nice right now, something to relax with.”She had not put anything on when Betsy brought her a glass of wine and she lay on the couch, her hand cupped under the bell of the glass as if it were someone’s breast, Betsy’s breast. And Betsy yearned to touch her and feel Erica’s touch; and she remembered Sunday afternoons neither one of them would bother putting on clothes and they would sip wine together and find food they could eat with their fingers, olives or apple slices or cheese and sometimes cheese and apple slices together.