Rachel Cohn - Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah

“Chill. The. Fuck. Out,” Parker tells me, but he’s completely unfazed, which agitates me even more. He walks to the pantry, pulls out the broom and pan, and begins sweeping the broken glass into the broom pan, way too comfortable with this old habit. “Do you want to do it or not?”

“NOT!” I declare, because my pride is speaking for me.

But my heart longs to do it. My body literally aches for it.

“Come on, Ils,” he says, laying on his sweetest voice, which he knows I can never resist. If I was wearing a button-down blouse, the button at my boobs would pop open right now, just from hearing Parker use this particular cajoling tone, which worked so effectively on me in the past. “Once more, for old time’s sake.”

“I don’t remember how,” I lie. It’s so long since I’ve done it. Like, since Parker and I broke up.

There have been other boys since. I even did it with KK once. But none could do it with me like Parker could. And the KK time involved a lot of Jäger shots to get me into position.

Parker dumps the broken glass into the trash, then steps behind me and lightly gyrates his pelvis against my rear. “Of course you remember,” he whispers in my ear. The feel of his breath scorches my neck, and the rest of my body tingles. He places his arms around my waist, so boldly, and I don’t resist. For a moment, I clasp my hands over his to tie him around me. The old rhythm of desire and familiarity returns too easily. I want to believe this is right. I want to believe so badly that this could happen.

But I don’t trust. I remember how much I thought he loved me. I remember how much I knew I loved him.

I pull away from him and turn around. “Why now?”

“I think it’d be fun,” he says, turning the pleading tone up to its highest decibel of smooth sexiness.

“Don’t you have some other girl to do it with?”

“None who move like you. You know that.”

I do know that.

Light bulb! Ding ding ding! I can’t believe I’m even considering this, but I say, “It would have to involve the cats. It –”

“No,” he interrupts. “No cats. They ruin it for me every time.”

Got him.

“Cats,” I say. “Or no Ilsa.”

He exhales deeply. “Okay. Cats.”

“I’ll think about it.”

But I’m already imagining the new moves I’m going to amaze Parker with. Since we broke up, I’ve taken up barre classes, and snoozer yoga (mostly for the nap time at the end, which feels like the only time I ever rest), and even dabbled in some pole-dancing classes. I now have bendy moves in my repertoire that Parker’s never dared dream his partner could do, because his subconscious doesn’t yet know they’re even possible.

“Don’t think about it. Go change now,” Parker suggests, knowing full well I stored my show dresses at Czarina’s and that once I make the change, there’s nothing to think about anymore. I’m totally in.

I will go change. But not for a few minutes yet. I want Parker to yearn and hope and wait. I want him to remember what that feels like. I won’t give him the satisfaction too quickly. Prolonging his wait, making him unsure if he’ll achieve the conquest he so ardently desires, was always my favorite dance with him. But oh, what glorious results.

I look down at my sad sack of a little silver, sparkly flapper dress. An hour ago it seemed so cute. But my dinner party invite was a call to arms for garish, and then the hostess herself didn’t live up to the invitation’s promise. An outfit this boring? It’s like I let Sam pick my attire. What was I thinking? I specified the party was a recess from the humdrum, and then I outfitted myself in humdrum. Obviously I needed Parker here to remind me to unlock the cats from the garment bag where they’ve been hiding in Czarina’s closet since Parker and I broke up. Of course! I get it now. GARISH. Let’s go, Ilsa! The cats are coming out of retirement. Meow for the wow.

Czarina is a great seamstress, and she created a fabulous A-line cocktail dress for me with fabric I found at a cheap fabric-bolt store in the Garment District. The pattern on the off-white fabric is called AccessorCat, and it features pastel-colored illustrations of various cats wearing various accessories: a gray-and-tan-striped tabby cat wearing bright blue eyeglasses, an orange marble cat wearing a debonair purple scarf, a black cat wearing an emerald-green cowboy hat. “If Princess Grace Kelly was a crazy cat lady,” is how Czarina characterized the atrociously awesome dress. It was my favorite to wear when Parker and I competed in ballroom-dancing competitions, until he forbade it, saying just the sight of it had made him allergic to animals. But if he’s bold enough to request that I come out of retirement and be his dance partner once again at some mystery dance-off on the Lower East Side later tonight, surely he’s man enough to handle the cat dress again.

So what if my initial reaction to his request was typically Ilsa knee-jerk rage. I’ll grow out of it at some point, Czarina promises. (We both secretly fear I won’t.) Now I’m seeing the potential. A midnight-hour dance-off downtown, one last spin with my once and never again true love.

YES.

I won’t commit just yet. I’ll let Parker know that I’m in later, after the appetizer course is served.

Parker reaches to the kitchen counter and picks up the steel shaker that Sam had been using to sprinkle powdered sugar over the lemon tart. He shakes a dash of powdered sugar on my hair. “Change now,” Parker requests. “So I know you’re in. Pretty please?” He shakes an extra dash of sugar onto my head, and some of it lands on my eyelids and nose. He presses his index finger to my nose, lifts off some sugar, and then offers his finger to my lips, knowing full well how hungry I am.

I lick the sugar from Parker’s finger – delicious! (the sugar, and the finger) – a ruse to grab the shaker from his other hand at the same time. I dash a dollop of sugar on top of his head as Parker wrestles me to grab the shaker back. We are laughing and fighting for supremacy of the shaker when we hear KK announce her arrival in the kitchen.

“Enough with the food fight!” KK bellows. “People are waiting on beers! Be a proper hostess, bitch!” Parker and I separate, giving KK and her French-maid’s outfit a long stare. It’s not so much garish as full-on slutty. Classic lame-o Halloween, not classic Liberace. KK points at me. “There’s a pudgy girl in the living room also wearing the same outfit. Fix it.” She walks between Parker and me, giving him a cursory nudge. “You again. Ugh.” She reaches the fridge, pulls out a light beer, pops it open, takes a swig, then asks, “Is something burning in here?”

As if he heard her from the other room, Sam comes rushing into the kitchen and opens the oven. “Shit! Some cheese exploded onto the bottom of the oven.”

“Is that lasagna?” KK asks him.

“Yes,” Sam says as he pulls the tray from the oven.

“Obviously you forgot that I’m gluten- and dairy-free,” says KK.

“I didn’t,” says Sam. He looks toward me. “Help!” he pleads.

He means, Get everyone out of the kitchen . Dinner parties have a peculiar habit in which all the guests congregate in the kitchen while Sam is trying to coordinate food preparation, blocking his way and commenting on his concoctions before he’s ready for judgment. “We should just call them kitchen parties,” he’s often lamented.

“Everyone to the living room!” I declare as a faint smell of smoke wafts out from the burnt cheese at the bottom of the oven.

“The sock puppet has arrived,” Sam tells me.

“Huh?” I remember no such Wild Card. Sam must mean Jason Goldstein-Chung has arrived. Jason always has some weird trick up his sleeve – or sock, as the case must be.