Джонатан Троппер - This Is Where I Leave You

Before I can answer, Uncle Stan stands up and begins to clap, his large, gnarled hands coming together with the mild clink of pinky rings, a doddering, bent standing ovation of one.

“Sit down before you fall down, old man,” Mom says.

Paul looks around one more time, then shrugs and leans over to me, making a sour face.

“Who farted?” he says.

Penny shows up as the shiva is winding down for the night. “Hey,” she says, taking the empty chair in front of my seat. She’s wearing a black sundress and sandals, her skater’s legs crossed tantalizingly at eye level. “I’ve never paid a shiva call before.”

“You’re doing great,” I say.

“Some old perv pinched my butt on the stairs as I was coming in.”

“That’s my uncle Stan. He’s harmless.”

“Tell that to my butt cheek. It’s like he wanted to take a piece with him.”

“Hello, Penny,” Mom says.

“Hi, Mrs. Foxman. I’m so sorry about Mort.”

“Thank you. He was very fond of you.”

“He was such a nice man. We all miss him down at the store.”

“Well, it was very nice of you to come see us.”

“I’m just sorry it’s taken this long. You know we keep the store open until nine in the summer.”

“Penny is the only one Dad trusted to close up and turn on the alarm,” Paul says.

“It’s not exactly rocket science,” Penny says, blushing. Then, noticing Wendy, “Oh my God, Wendy! I didn’t recognize you.”

“That’s because, unlike you, I’ve actually had the decency to age. Look at you. I bet they still card you in bars.”

“Hardly,” Penny says, shifting nervously under Wendy’s unflinching scrutiny.

“I mean, Jesus,” Wendy says, shaking her head. “What are you, a size two?”

THE VISITORS ARE all gone, and the house has fallen quiet. Penny and I sit in the dark by the pool’s edge with our feet in the water. The only light comes from two submerged pool lamps, so all we can see is a fine mist rising up off the heated water. “So, how are you doing?” she says.

“Fine, I guess. It’s a lot of family time. I think we’re going to need a year off from each other when this is over.”

She nods, tracing little circles in the water with her toes. “I live around the corner from my parents. My mother has macular degeneration; she can’t see well enough to drive anymore. So I take her grocery shopping every Tuesday and I have dinner with them every Sunday night.”

“That’s nice, isn’t it?”

She shrugs. “It can be, with the right mix of meds. God, it’s hot out here.”

“Yeah. It’s been like this all week. Muggy as hell.”

“You’d think it would get cooler at night.”

“Yeah. Not lately.”

“Oh God, Judd. Listen to us. We’re talking about the weather. Are we avoiding something, or do we simply have nothing to say to each other?”

“Conversation was never a problem for us.”

“Well, then, let’s put a moratorium on small talk, okay?”

“Deal.”

“And for God’s sake, let’s get in the water already.” She stands up, and I can’t quite see her eyes, but I know they’re daring me. “Turn around,” she says.

I do, and a few seconds later I hear a light splash as she slides into the water. I turn around and see the dark pile of her dress on the ground. I pull off my polo shirt and my cargo pants. I hesitate for a moment when it comes to my boxer briefs. To doff or not to doff, that is the question. How did Penny answer it? In the dim light coming up from the depths of the pool, it’s impossible to say. I slide into the pool with my underpants on. Better safe than sorry.

She holds on to a rung of the ladder while I tread water a foot or so in front of her. After a few moments, my eyes have adjusted enough that I can look into hers. I flash back to Horry and Wendy, looking at each other in this exact spot a few hours ago, this haunted pool that seems to pull dead and buried love to its surface.

“I’ve been thinking about you, Judd.”

“Me too.”

“Do you think you’d like to kiss me now?”

I glide over to her, my hand falling over hers on the ladder rung. Up close, I can make out the tantalizing outline of her breasts, wet and glistening, where they disappear into the water. “Listen,” I say, but then, somehow we’re already kissing, deep and slow, our tongues colliding softly, gathering speed. And her taste is exactly as I remember it, brings me back in an instant to those nights of sweaty dry-humping in my basement, and I can feel her nipples hard against my chest, her fingers gliding up my back to my neck, pressing against the spot where my spine becomes my skull.

I have kissed no one but Jen in over ten years, and we have not kissed like this in a very long time, with gaping mouths and frantic tongues, where kissing is its own kind of sex. I am kissing another woman, and the awareness of these lips opening against mine in wet surrender, these fingers snaking down my chest, these smooth, naked thighs wrapped around my hips, is both exhilarating and surreal. If one woman is willing to kiss me like this, it stands to reason that, in due time, others might be equally willing, and for the first time since I walked in on Jen and Wade, I feel something approaching optimism about my future.

After a while, Penny stops to catch her breath, gasping a little as she turns around to rest her arms against the edge of the pool. I swim up behind her and put my hands on either side of her arms, pressing my chest against her back. She leans her head back to press her cheek against mine. “That was so nice,” she says.

My body falls against hers, and when my erection, straining underwater against my soaked underpants, falls lightly against the curve of her ass, she emits a low groan.

“Listen,” I say. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Tell me tomorrow,” she says, pressing herself hard against me. “Just do that now.”

PENNY LEFT A little while ago, after kissing me a few more times. Now I’m horny and throbbing and sleep is an impossibility, so, for some twisted reason, I dial Jen’s cell.

“Hello?” Wade’s voice. I should have realized he’d be there. Wade’s not the sort of guy who would pass on the opportunity for some hotel sex. I hang up, wait a minute, and dial again. “Hello?” he says with a little more emphasis, like maybe the mystery caller hadn’t understood him the first time. It’s Jen’s cell; why the hell is he picking up? I hang up and dial again. This time his voice is thin and clipped. “Judd,” he says. I listen to his breathing for a long moment and then I hang up. On my next call, Jen picks up.

“Hey, Jen.”

“Judd,” she says, probably with a sardonic, knowing nod for Wade’s benefit. I picture them lying in bed, him running his thick fingers up her naked thigh to the curve of her ass as she talks to me, his other hand fondling his thick, semi-erect cock, getting it ready for her. Wade could not get enough pancreatic cancer to satisfy me.

“So, we’re going to be parents.”

“It’s late, Judd. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something, again?”

“No. I’m just exhausted.”

“Would you have left me?” I say, surprising both of us. “If you hadn’t gotten caught, do you think you would have left me or left him?”

I can hear her breath catch on the phone. “I honestly don’t know,” she says.

It is one of those questions that can’t possibly have a right answer, but hers still hurts.