Sarah Mlynowski - Monkey Business

Now the floor is a mess.

And we’re on the bed, me on top, and then I’m inside her and we’re making love, fast, it’s been over a month. For her, anyway.

“Do you want to come now?” I ask.

“Later. Don’t worry. Go ahead, come now, it’s okay, I figured we should get the first time out of the way, since it’s been so long for you.”

Probably not the best time to tell her I had sex less than twenty-four hours ago with the woman she just met downstairs. Now that was wild sex. Kimmy was on top but facing my feet. I came in about five seconds. Stop imagining sex with Kimmy. Stop. Can’t. I come, and hold Sharon tightly. “Well,” I say. I run my fingers over her earlobe. “Nice to see you.”

She wiggles to get comfortable beside me. “Not much room in here, is there?”

“Oh, it’s fine.” I’m about to add, you get used to it, but I catch myself in time.

“I can’t believe I almost didn’t make it because of the flu. It was so gross. I was puking all over the place.”

Now there’s an image I’d rather forget. “But you’re here,” I say. “You made it.”

“Made it.”

“Made it straight to my room. Um…how did you find my room, anyway?”

She runs her fingers through my hair. “A girl in the foyer offered to show me the way. She knew you, actually. When I told her who I was looking for, she said that I must be Sharon. You must talk about me a lot, huh?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

D-Day diverted.

7:45 p.m.

“You look marvelous, darling,” Ronnie, my little sister, says, patting down my hair.

I’m sitting at my vanity table in my room in Manhattan, enjoying the space, lining my eyes. “Thanks.”

In the mirror she looks like a miniature version of me. A few years younger, her facial structure is daintier, her eyes smaller, her hair shorter. She graduated from Brown last May and is now at Teacher’s College. I tried to talk her out of it. With so many options available to her, why does she want to be just a teacher? But she ignored me. She sets her glass of champagne on my night table.

“That better be on a coaster,” I say. The apartment is not quite in the condition I left it in. I’ve noticed numerous scratches on the coffee table.

“We’re going to head over to Mack’s tonight,” she says. “So you can be aloooooone with Bradley.”

Mack is Ronnie’s long-haired boyfriend who isn’t good enough for her.

“Have you spoken to Mom?” I ask. “Is she in the city?”

Ronnie rolls her eyes. “Who knows? I haven’t heard from her in months.”

“Don’t be rude,” I say, and pick up the phone. “Let’s call her now.”

Her voice mail picks up. I leave a message.

“I’m shocked,” Ronnie mutters, and walks away.

“She’ll call us back later,” I call after her.

“Whatever.”

At five to eight, the doorman calls up. “Bradley is here.”

“Thank you, send him up.”

When the buzzer sounds, I’m balancing myself on the arm of the couch, holding a glass of champagne. I can’t believe this is happening. Bradley Green is picking me up on the eve of Valentine’s Day. The hockey game is blaring in the background from the flat-screen TV. Ronnie opens the door.

Bradley is wearing a black suit, and is holding a bouquet of roses. A dozen long-stemmed red roses. How perfect! He tugs one out of the bouquet and hands it to Ronnie. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says.

“How sweet!” my sister shrieks.

I approach the door, and he plants a kiss on my cheek. My entire face tingles.

“For you,” he says, handing me the bouquet.

Aw. “Thank you.”

As I find a vase to put the roses in, I hear him discussing the hockey game with Mack. Seems like he knows just what to say to everyone.

By the time we leave, both Mack and Ronnie are swooning. When Brad’s not looking, Ronnie mouths, “Wow.” I believe they are impressed.

In the elevator, I wonder if we’re going to walk to the restaurant or flag a cab. But a black sedan outside the door answers the question. Is that his car? Did he hire it for the night? I’m feeling mildly light-headed. I’m unclear if it’s from the champagne or the roses/suit/car combination.

He takes me to La Grenouille, and does everything right. He knows his wines, listens while I talk, asks all kinds of questions. After dinner, he drops a platinum American Express card on the table, and asks, “Would you like to go to Plush?”

Plush is the new VIP hot spot on Forty-second Street. This is turning into the best Valentine’s weekend ever.

Saturday, February 14, 9:00 a.m.

This is officially the worst Valentine’s Day ever.

I lift the phone in the ICU waiting room and wait for the nurse to answer.

“ICU?” the nurse says.

“Hi, Donna, it’s Jamie. Can I come in?”

“Of course. Your mom is here.”

“I know. Thanks.” I rub the antibacterial cream into my hands and open the door. I wave to the nurses.

My mother is sitting on the wooden chair in my bubbe’s room, staring vacantly out the window. Her eyes are heavily shadowed, as though she hasn’t slept in months.

I sit on the metal stool beside her. “How is she?”

“The same,” she answers, her voice shaking. “Terrible.”

My grandmother is lying on the bed, eyes closed, too thin, too pale. Her heart is too weak. Her almost transparent skin sags around the thin bones of her face. There is nothing the doctors can do.

“What did the nurse say?” I ask softly.

“Any time now.”

I’m not shocked. You always expect your grandparents to die. My other grandparents are already gone. But they’d always been old. But not my bubbe. I thought she’d be around forever.

Okay, I can deal with her leaving, but I can’t deal with it if she can’t. I want her to call me over and tell me it’s okay. That she’s okay about dying. That she’s looking forward to the next step. Looking forward to being with Zadie. That she’s not scared. I can deal with no longer seeing her anymore, but I can’t deal with her fear. After going through the Holocaust, and burying her husband, I can’t bear to have her go through any more pain. How horribly unfair.

I’m exhausted. I’ve been making jokes for days, trying to keep my bubbe going, trying to make her laugh. Yesterday, I even juggled bananas for her. She tried to smile.

I hate being here.

I hand my mother a heart-shaped chocolate. She doesn’t smile.

Valentine’s Day has always been disastrous. At ten, Maddy Weiner, the tiny brunette who sat in front of me in the fourth grade, ripped my homemade Valentine’s Day card in quarters and tossed it like confetti around the schoolyard. I went to the nurse and told her I had to go home, because my heart was broken.

In high school, I sent a dozen red roses and a singing telegram to my girlfriend of two weeks, right in the middle of biology. She broke up with me at lunch.

And then there was the bike accident. Which happened to be on February 14.

All in all, never a successful holiday for me. But I’ve never felt more alone.

I wonder if Layla misses me.

I take my mother’s hand and squeeze. And we wait.

11:50 p.m.

I’m lying on Layla’s bed, slightly drunk from a bottle of Chardonnay I’d bought in a futile attempt to cheer myself up, flipping through channels, trying to find something on TV that isn’t about stupid Valentine’s Day.

Irresistible, my ass. That lipstick is going right in the garbage.

Everyone else in the world has something to do tonight. Even Nick and Lauren have dates. With two undergrad roommates, oddly. And I have nothing. I have to pee, but I’m afraid to run into Russ and his precious Sharon. I crept out of the building at ten a.m. and spent the day at the library, and so far I’ve managed to avoid them. I’d planned on showing up in places I’d thought they’d be, so that Russ could compare us in the flesh (and thus find her lacking), but I couldn’t bear to see them together, laughing and kissing, arms intertwined.