She caught Stan coming out of the bathroom, one hand down his pants as he fumbled with his shirttails.
“Stan, come with me,” she said. “I have something to show you in the hydrangeas.”
Not the most seductive line, but Stan was her second-to-last target, she was tired, and he would certainly follow her into the bushes or under the kitchen sink if she asked. Sure enough, in five minutes she had undone his carefully tucked dress shirt, and he was grasping at her breasts with puffy palms.
Stan was the twelfth man Louisa had kissed that night. Most had been easy marks, though the professors were suspiciously self-assured: they grabbed her waist or hiked up her leg as if used to younger, suppler limbs. Only one – a grad student – had seemed ill at ease. He’d stammered, acting calm, but there was sweat on his mustache. She’d reconciled herself to a quick peck.
She crossed the lawn to the bar, a fold-out table draped in white cloth. Pouring a martini, she glanced around. Her garden looked well, of course. The Cambridge wives chatted vigorously next to the hydrangeas, determined to play at normality. Their husbands stood beside them, subdued. The pockets of guests had thinned out – Louisa smiled into her drink, thinking that soon she would be in a Manhattan studio. She would call Hannah from social-work school, and they would meet at Café Figaro. Maybe she would even look up some Sacred Heart girls; she assumed they were still on the Upper East Side. Scrutinizing their perms and reminiscing about Sister Margaret’s mole might be a laugh.
She eyed her final target. David was standing by what she called the baby fountain, a cherub holding a bird bath. She stepped from stone to stone on the garden path until she reached him. He looked down as she approached, giving his Dark and Stormy a swirl. They watched the amber tornado settle in his glass.
“This is one of your better parties,” he said.
“Well. It’s not every day one’s husband retires from teaching and married life.”
He sighed. “Louisa.”
It was petty, but she wouldn’t admit it, so she looked towards the garden instead. The last of the guests were leaving: some gave fake, cheery waves while others walked determinedly towards their cars.
“I kissed all your friends.”
“You did what?”
“I kissed all of them. Paul and Jared were a little gropey – I think they’re used to a student set. And Aaron was mechanical. He’s been handsome for so long, he must rely on muscle memory now. Stan was greedy—”
“You kissed Stan?”
“That’s what shocks you?”
“Louisa, what are you doing?”
“I’m kissing all the men. Because after twenty years, I don’t owe anything to anyone. I didn’t join the wives’ book clubs or go to your colleagues’ asinine lectures—”
“So I’m responsible for that? Twenty years ago you were so prophetic you thought you’d save yourself the trouble?”
“I didn’t save myself from anything.”
The porch light went on, and Louisa glanced over automatically. Inside was the sofa bed where he’d been sleeping. Each morning he was gone by the time she woke up; seeing his reading glasses on the wicker table always gave her a stomach cramp. Just two round lenses, but somehow they conjured the arc of his lips, the hair between his eyebrows he refused to pluck.
“I’m going to kiss you, David.”
He said nothing, looked at the porch lights. It amazed Louisa that he was leaving her for an older woman – an unattractive one, no less. She’d seen her at the university, gray bob and blue blazer. Louisa put a hand between his shoulders and turned his face towards hers. His mouth was motionless, his eyes unfocused; she suspected he was parleying with Elaine in his mind. She kissed him, and they were back at the café in the Village, where she’d leaned across the checkered tablecloth as he’d described Plato’s chair. Where he’d confessed how he’d been scared of the man-sized monkeys in Wizard of Oz. He was squinting through his glasses at the opera; he was folding them into his pocket before grabbing her by the vest, kissing her in front of the Washington Square Arch, and she knew she would follow him to the end of the earth, into any hydrangea bush, or onto the porch bed, as she did now.
*
Elizabeth Vidas is a writer and teacher living in Montpellier, France. Her short story “Smoldering” will appear in the upcoming issue of Western Humanities Review.