Chapter 31
Andrew
This is what pisses me off.
The next week I stay after school again, three extras hours, without pay, on a non-tutoring day to tutor a sarcastic little brat who used his hour last week to fuck with my head. Maya has to move her group back an hour so she can pick up Kiki from Ms. Smith’s Village and take her to a doctor’s appointment, which I had planned to do, and said little brat doesn’t show up. He doesn’t say anything in class. He doesn’t stop by after school. He doesn’t leave a note in my mailbox.
He just doesn’t show.
At four forty, I leave. And then, just to cover my ass, I leave a note on the door, just in case he does show.
The house is quiet when I get home. It occurs to me that I haven’t been in the house alone once since moving in. I don’t turn on the TV to check the news as I usually do. I just want to soak up the quiet and unwind, or I swear to God, I’m going to hunt down a live chicken and bite its head off.
So I’m not particularly thrilled when someone knocks on the door, and I’m really hoping I don’t have to play nice with parents or babysit any kids until Maya gets home.
I paste a smile on my face and open the door.
“Sorry, I’m—” Robert looks up at me from the step down, and my knees actually go a little weak. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
For a moment I think he’s followed me here, but he looks just as surprised as I am, and I dismiss the thought.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I say, my heart hammering in my chest.
“I work with some kids here, every Wednesday, with Ms. Momin.”
No. No way. No fucking way. Maya’s talked about her group, but she’s never mentioned any names, or if she has, they just didn’t stick with me. I can’t believe it. Robert, my Robert, has been coming here for months? And now he’s here and I’m here and there are so many things I want to say to him. But all I can think to say is, “Come on in.”
I hold the door open for him and he slips past me like I’m going to punch him or something. “Your group’s been postponed until six. Maya said she called everyone.”
“Maya? My phone’s dead. Wait, you know Ms. Momin? And, why are you here?”
I wipe my hand down my face. Wow. It occurs to me later that this moment is the very definition of serendipity. “Maya—Ms. Momin—is my ex-wife.” I’m embarrassed to admit the next part. “I live here now. I mean, I used to live here, and I moved back a couple of weeks ago.”
“You were married to Ms. Momin? She’s your ex-wife? She was the woman in that picture?”
I shrug.
His face screws up as he tries to grasp what I’ve said. “Wait. What do you mean you moved back in? You don’t live in your apartment anymore?”
I shake my head.
“Why?”
“Do I really need to answer that?”
“Yes,” he says, his voice cracking. “You do.”
I’m still holding the door open. I close it, and that in itself makes me nervous. Because he’s so close, and we are so alone. “Robert, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
I don’t know what he sees in my face, but he throws himself at me. I stagger backward into a small table and a lamp tumbles to the floor. I think he means to hurt me for hurting him, but he grabs my face in his hands and jams his mouth against mine.
It takes about five seconds to undo all the distance I’ve managed to put between us in the last two and a half weeks.
My hands are under his shirt and he’s pulling it over his head and whispering things like, “How much time do we have?” and I’m answering, “Not much,” and he’s saying, “Then we’ll hurry,” and I’m saying, “God, I want you,” and he’s saying, “You’ve got me,” and I’m hoping like hell Maya doesn’t pull into the driveway for another twenty minutes at least.
There’s no time to get completely naked, and no need. We’re naked enough. And there’s plenty of need already. By the time the garage door goes up half an hour later, we’re dressed, I’ve righted the lamp and lit the candle that Maya likes to burn when the kids are here to help them relax, and Robert’s moving the dining room chairs into a semicircle.
“Hey,” she says to Robert as I scoop up Kiki. “You’re early. Didn’t you get my message?”
“Um, yeah. I just got here. Is it okay if I’m a little early? I can always—”
“No, of course not. I guess you’ve met my ex-husband.”
“Yeah,” I say before he can respond. We haven’t worked out our story yet, so I’m doing it on the fly. “We’ve had a few minutes to get acquainted.”
Robert smiles a little too broadly, then turns away quickly to retrieve his recorder from the table.
“Well,” I say to Maya, trying very hard not to look at Robert and imagine him with his jeans around his thighs again. “How about I take this one for some chicken tenders somewhere?”
“Just no McDonald’s,” Maya says, giving Kiki a kiss on the cheek.
Maya’s no McDonald’s sets off a chant. “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s.” Kiki’s jumping in my arms, and in my peripheral vision, I see Robert watching and grinning. Boy, I’d like to take him for a Happy Meal.
“All right, all right, all right,” Maya says. “Just no chicken nuggets, okay. Who knows what’s in that stuff.”
As I watch my daughter pick her way through two chicken nuggets—she’s quite persistent—I realize that I am too far gone to turn back now. I’m crazy about that kid. And four months—three now, I think—is too damn long.
In retrospect, lying about knowing Robert was probably a bad idea. There was really no reason to lie. I have students; he has teachers. No big deal. I just felt a little naked standing there and my knee-jerk response was to lie. No harm done, though.
When Kiki runs off to play with another little girl on the Mc-playground, I send him a text. I don’t have to worry about him getting it during his group session; his battery is dead. But I want it to be the first thing he sees when he charges his phone tonight.
I surrender. Please delete.
I’m back home and in bed when he texts back.
Robert
Ms. Momin has always been super nice to me. And I feel a little guilty about ejaculating in her entryway.
I’m also finding it hard to focus on the kids today because I keep remembering the way his hands felt on my skin, and I’m sitting here in front of three special-needs kids and a woman who is my sort-of boyfriend’s ex-wife, and I’m primed and ready to go again. I shift uncomfortably, hoping she sees me as too much of a kid to ever let her eyes drift between my legs.
“Good job, guys!” I say when we finish the lamb was sure to go. Patrick is out of his seat again and flailing his arms about and almost beans Sophie.
“Take it easy, Patrick,” I say, capturing one of his bent arms. He puckers up his mouth like he’s waiting for the word he wants to say to build up inside him, then explodes with a “Bah!”
“Yeah, it was really good.”
“Bah!”
Ms. Momin winks at me over Sophie’s head, and I wonder if she’s ever had Andrew’s penis in her mouth. And just when I’m starting to get things under control again, suddenly I’m not.
Stop thinking about it!
I keep hoping Andrew and Kiki will get back before we finish, but they don’t. And maybe that’s for the best. But if I don’t get my hands on him again soon, I’m likely to lose it and give us both away.
By the time I get home and plug in my phone, I’m already making plans. His text—I surrender—drives away any lingering doubts. I text back.
LOL. About time. I’m deleting.