Six months aft her hubby died, Lily Weilerstein recovered his enactment diaries buried successful the backmost support of the cedar closet successful the hallway of the Upper West Side flat wherever they had lived unneurotic for astir forty years, since the “Age of Possibility” arsenic Walter referred to it, backmost erstwhile they were astir young. Their archetypal spot had been a railroad flat, 4 flights up, 3 avenues implicit connected Columbus, amid the cause dealers and the prostitutes, the opera singers and the societal workers, good for newlyweds starting out. But erstwhile 10 years into the matrimony Walter had recovered an advertisement for a sublet connected Riverside Drive hanging connected the bulletin committee astatine the national wherever helium worked, Lily had thanked God for it; or, amended yet, God’s secular equivalent (luck). She was 8 months large with their 3rd kid astatine the time. Three bedrooms and a maid’s. Who was the maid? Lily? Walter?
In the opening they each took turns scrubbing the floors and the toilets. Activists, each twelvemonth they renegotiated their marital declaration successful the tone successful which they embraced their life’s work—“To each according to his abilities, to each according to her needs.” Walter needed much than Lily did, this overmuch was obvious, and truthful that small cupboard of a maid’s country rapidly became his study—a country of his own—leaving Lily lone a country of the meal array for her leaflets and her operation of files (political campaigns, termination rights, the PTA, a real job arsenic a household advocator successful an assemblyman’s office, past that dazzling determination connected up to Chuck Schumer’s). But the cedar closet, that was Lily’s turf; and for her it spelled retired luxury.
Now, forty-some-odd years later, Lily was connected tippy-toe connected apical of an past stepladder, breathing successful the indispensable of rotting papers and aged photographs, the stale aerial of wool mufflers and wintertime coats, the affluent reddish wood having agelong agone squandered and released its scent; she was searching the precocious shelves for 1 of Walter’s grey cashmere V-neck sweaters, really reasoning the anserine brushed happening mightiness odor similar him and springiness her comfort—what a moron! She had been grieving him astatine the time. But erstwhile Lily opened the archetypal successful a bid of 8 spiral notebooks—just the show of Walter’s handwriting had made her gasp, his elegant European penmanship exhibiting specified a striking carnal lyricism that Lily could astir perceive the swelling philharmonic accompaniment, those telltale strings—she realized the treasure trove she had uncovered.
Like a sleepwalker, she carried the notebooks into the bedroom. There she laic connected their queen-size bed, paging done the riveting, devastating accounts of Walter’s shenanigans—feet up, belly down, the aforesaid posture she’d adopted erstwhile she’d work movie magazines arsenic a teen successful her father’s location successful East New York—hunting frantically for thing to marque her consciousness better.
Thank God, Lily thought, she had been included, referred to passim arsenic “my beloved, my one” successful the entries. Walter’s determination of their not-infrequent couplings had been rather accurate: “sweet, loving, a carnal home.” During the long, progressive people of their marriage, she and Walter had had a existent romance; they fought and laughed and talked incessantly, connected the phone, astatine the room table, successful the bath portion helium shaved and she sat connected the toilet to pee. She’d counted connected the information that they’d loved each different always. The damn notebooks had done thing to dispel that notion. But intelligibly they had not had the hot, exciting, dangerous, genuinely erotic enactment that Walter had truthful evidently been drawn to. Names, dates, positions; her friends, his friends, her ain archetypal cousin, Ceil, agelong dormant now, from crab of the breast—beautiful, neurotic, unmarried Ceil had schtupped her Walter! And a smattering (this stung particularly, though she wasn’t rather definite why) of citations of liaisons with men, immoderate referred to by initials, immoderate by number, men from bars, nationalist lavatories, men from trains, concern trips—Walter had been a labour lawyer, helium was ever disconnected determination protesting something, redeeming the world, she’d thought, and sucking, it appeared now, immoderate teamster’s cock. As soon arsenic she’d uncovered her husband’s concealed life, Lily didn’t mourn him immoderate longer.
Instead, erstwhile she’d laid her eyes connected the messy by-product of a complex, quality existence—Walter’s—Lily was jealous and competitory and bent connected getting even. If Lily had not had this astonishing enactment with Walter, she’d not had it with anyone.
Such words helium used! For tendency alone: lustfulness, goatishness, horniness, libidinousness, lasciviousness, hot blood, hot pants, and hot rocks! Why, his descriptions of the pistillate organ were astir embarrassingly adolescent—like a pinkish oyster, a bedewed flower, a lukewarm glove. But for the antheral jeweled acceptable helium chose the rough-and-tumble bag and basket. How helium reveled successful his clandestine relation arsenic archivist, arsenic diarist, that adulterer.
They had been joined for 50 beauteous years. And 3 lousy ones. The lousy ones coming astatine the end, aft Parkinson’s had taken clasp and Walter’s hands had archetypal begun to shingle and past his equilibrium had faltered and yet helium was reduced to taking small mincing babe steps similar that quality Tim Conway utilized to play connected The Carol Burnett Show. One night, erstwhile she was dependable asleep—caring for him had exhausted her so!—Lily had woken up abruptly to the dependable of a ample thump, her Walter falling and hitting his caput connected their hardwood floor. He’d suffered a monolithic cerebral hemorrhage, and with their 3 grown children surrounding her—one flying successful from LA, 1 from London, the different hopping successful a cab crossed town—he’d undergone 2 bouts of neurosurgery the adjacent morning. A period successful the infirmary and different 3 successful rehab had brought him home, location to a beingness of wetting the bed, spilling food, and a batch of incomprehension; it had been incomprehensible to Lily that the antheral she had spoken with nonstop for fractional a period present had truthful small to say. It seemed incomprehensible to her that the aureate aged property they had planned for—Elderhostel, a travel to China, unneurotic ever together, protesting immoderate horrible messiness came next—had been taken distant from them. It had seemed incomprehensible to her arsenic she bathed and dressed Walter and schlepped him from 1 signifier of therapy to different that this was the mode successful which her brilliant, desirable, always-interesting, somewhat-difficult hubby would extremity his life.
But of people that is the mode it ended; aft 3 miserable years, he’d had a bid of seizures successful their furniture arsenic she frantically called EMS, and past died, conscionable died determination successful that aforesaid bed, a furniture they had shared for truthful long, a furniture wherever she had nursed him and slept with him and watched TV with him and work to him and fought with him and made up with him, the furniture she was lying connected close now! He died connected their furniture with a miserable, twisted aggravated look connected his look that really held much quality than she had seen successful it for a long, agelong time. In death, his look was accusatory. It said: Why did you fto this hap to me?
It had been an look she had tried to erase from her mind. At present, she nurtured its memory.
Lily rolled over, now, onto her back, distant from her husband’s meticulous ledgers, and tried to seizure her breath, which on with her heart, these days, had the wont of moving distant from her. On the ceiling of their room, determination was a alternatively ample h2o people and an accompanying ace and fissure. It was successful the signifier of the metropolis of Tallahassee. Was this blemish somewhat new, oregon had it, similar the remainder of the decay successful her life—the property spots that bloomed similar lichen crossed the apical of her hands, the foreshortening plait of her spine—been stealthily creeping up connected her?
Lily made a intelligence enactment to look into the fissure’s origins. Her second-generation upstairs neighbors—the gathering was rent controlled—a household of five, had agelong agone moved to the suburbs (Ridgefield? Scarsdale? Montclair!) and utilized the seven-room flat arsenic a pied-à-terre, truthful it was mostly empty. She could effort and summon the caller super, Fred, whom she’d met lone done an announcement slipped nether her door. He didn’t reply his pager and was truthful ne'er astir erstwhile she needed him. Household upkeep, and the wrangling of craftsmen, had been Walter’s responsibility, 1 he’d acceded to Lily with regret erstwhile unwellness had near him nary longer competent. Not that helium was useful by nature; Walter wasn’t, helium was an intellectual, a campaigner, an advocate—his was a beingness of the mind! (And now, it seemed, of the gonads.) But helium hadn’t relished handing implicit immoderate portion of his domain, adjacent the aspects that helium astir despised.
She was old. This information was incontrovertible. Lily was aged and would dice soon. She sat up. All the humor rushed from her head. She placed her palms connected the bedspread to dependable herself. She looked astatine her near hand, with the elemental metallic wedding band—she and Walter, they’d had specified ideas! they’d had specified purpose!—and she watched arsenic the swollen bluish veins rolled implicit the bladed soft ligament that played her fingers arsenic she stretched them out. She stood carefully, and past erstwhile she’d regained her balance, Lily walked retired of her chamber and down the hall, past that anserine cedar closet, kicking the doorway shut, and into the kitchen.
There she opened the refrigerator, poured herself immoderate integrated Georgia peach foodstuff she kept astir for the grandkids. She sat down astatine the room table, knocking the abdominous brownish calico cat, Buster, disconnected his smug small quadrate of sunshine. She moved her ain caput and shoulders into it, resting connected her elbows. The airy that emanated from the interior courtyard (the windows present blessedly south-facing) bathed her room and bath and the 2 children’s bedrooms, which agelong agone had been converted into a impermanent country and a TV room—Lily and Walter, a TV room, what a laugh; they ne'er had clip for TV, not unless you counted CNN and 60 Minutes, although successful the end, she’d recovered herself watching Oprah for company—she loved that confederate light! The sunshine felt bully connected her face, and for a infinitesimal she rested. Then she reached an limb backmost into the furniture wherever she kept the booze, opened a small airplane vessel of vodka, and enactment it successful her juice.
Her hubby was dead. She couldn’t archer connected him to his parent and plaything Mrs. Weilerstein astir to her side, oregon confide successful her ain angry, ever-humiliated father, who mightiness person gone aft Walter with a room knife, due to the fact that Pop had gone aft her sister Rina’s archetypal hubby with a room weapon erstwhile Rina had recovered him with the cleaning lady. They were each dead: Mrs. Weilerstein, Lily’s pop, Lily’s sister, her sister’s archetypal husband, Myman, and her 2nd husband, Paul, dead, dead, dead, and, thus, successful a conspiracy against her. Lily was connected her own.
She drank her peachy screwdriver successful 1 agelong voracious gulp. She would unrecorded without them, each of them, the bastards.
Lily picked up the phone. She dialed the fig of her eldest daughter, Mirra. The wanton, chaotic one. The slut.
“How bash I unrecorded without them?” Lily asked.
Three times a week, connected average, successful the past six months, Lily had called her girl with this question. She stared astatine the Nature Conservancy calendar that she’d taped up to the room partition arsenic she asked it. It was April. Flowers and showers. So what.
Mirra had been booted from her ain location by her ain hubby a mates of years back, caught erstwhile again, this clip connected her 3rd go-round, with a younger lover. (She had her father’s genes! It was hereditary! If lone Lily had known this, she wouldn’t person bothered spending truthful galore years blaming herself. Mirra’s promiscuity was the provenance of her father. She’s your fucking fault, Walter!) Mirra’s 3 children had spent the past fewer years doing a shuttle-bus way betwixt their parents’ apartments, for the lad East Side to West, and the 2 girls, a car work up from the Village. Mirra had discovered, she’d accidental connected bully days—on the days erstwhile she wasn’t calling Lily up and asking: “How bash I unrecorded without them?”—that the lone mode to person a beingness and children was divorce. All the pleasures of motherhood and inactive each different week 1 could slumber in, work a book, person sex, spell to the gym, devour out, spot a movie, speech connected the phone, support a career. Mirra had erstwhile been a divorcement lawyer but was present in-house counsel astatine a bank. (Fieldston. Buck’s Rock Work Camp. Oberlin College. A unpaid successful a nutrient pantry successful 1 of the poorest sections of Colorado. And present a banker! Where had they gone wrong?)
“What’s ‘live’?” said Mirra, somewhat irritated, chewing gum. It was an every-other Sunday, truthful she was connected duty, and Mirra was ever testy erstwhile she was connected duty; she loved being with her kids successful the abstract. In the background, World War III raged connected betwixt Lily’s grandchildren. On a time this gorgeous, they duked it retired wrong the apartment. Lily would stake wealth the windows were each closed. “Be qualitative, Mom. What precisely bash you mean?”
“I privation to get laid,” said Lily. The vodka had gone to her head.
Now, Mirra cracked her gum audibly.
“Go to Florida,” said Mirra.
It was bully advice, but required preparation.
“Too far,” said Lily.
“That’s wherever the boys are,” Mirra said. “At your age.” She shrieked implicit her shoulder: “Lizzie Borden Junior, enactment that weapon away. Now.” She returned her attraction to her mother. “You can’t spell to a bar. You’re excessively old. You should excavation up idiosyncratic you utilized to know—some widower of a person you ever thought was cute, oregon a feline from precocious school, oregon the colony house. City College. Recycling usually works for me. You could google. I googled Billy Rappaport past week, you know, from camp? And it paid off. He’s divorced and a existent property cause surviving successful New Jersey. He took maine to Le Bernardin and spent oodles of money, adjacent earlier I fto him spell to 2nd basal successful the backmost of the Uber.”
Mercifully, the enactment went dead. Lily hoped that 1 of the grandkids had yanked it retired of the partition truthful that she wouldn’t person to speech to that idiot Mirra immoderate longer. The younger grandchild, the evil one, Adam. He astir apt did it. Adam was Lily’s favorite.
The 92nd Street Y. That’s wherever the aged folks spell erstwhile they’re lonely. When they don’t spell to Florida, Lily thought, and they’re not yet excessively demented. She’d ne'er had clip for each the worldly she’d work astir successful the Y’s catalog, but she’d ever title-glanced the descriptions, oohing and ahhing implicit the lectures she would ne'er attend, the creation classes she could not marque country for. Now Lily had abstraction for a batch of things. Like speechmaking the 92nd Street Y catalog screen to cover. There were poesy recitations: a discarded of time. There were concerts, which she loved, particularly the strings, and lectures. There were one-day Italian-language immersions—how clever, one-day immersions, for her acceptable this was committedness enough. She picked up the telephone and registered for the connection lesson. Then she deed the minis again and got drunk capable to autumn dormant earlier the six o’clock news, successful the TV room—she was not funny successful her queen-size bed, wherever successful 1987 Walter had seemingly practiced his ain fingering connected Mirra’s homely, overweight soft teacher.
He was an adjacent accidental adulterer, that Walter. For a infinitesimal Lily allowed herself to miss his brushed and generous heart.
*
The greeting of Lily’s archetypal and past Italian class, she had a wake-up telephone successful the shower. She realized she could clasp her candle in the looks department! She had been grooming her assemblage painstakingly—not that she expected thing to hap close away, she didn’t expect thing to hap close away, she knew that these things, romanticist things, instrumentality time, but she wasn’t looking for love, she was looking for sex; and truthful Lily prepared herself for the possibility. Because sex, apparently, enactment according to Walter—that’s however she present referred to the notebooks successful her mind, Sex According to Walter—could hap without adjacent a cursory introduction.
She shaved her legs cautiously crossed the Stiltony varicosities that mapped her calves and astir the triangle of her pubic hair, metallic present and sparse, and nether her arms for the archetypal clip successful months. Since earlier Walter died. Since mode earlier Walter died. It took a portion to bash this. Her legs were inactive slim, but they were wrinkled, the tegument fanned softly astir her interior thighs successful small pleated folds. She soaped her assemblage carefully, each bosom slippery and dense arsenic 1 manus lifted truthful the different could instrumentality a bully swipe beneath and astir it. She washed and conditioned her hair. When the h2o was off, she applied lotion to the brushed moving wide of her skin, truthful abstracted present from the assemblage beneath it. She’d taken tweezers to the acheronian down adjacent her belly button, astir her nipples, and past finally, daring the full-length mirror, astir her chin. God. Then she’d stared for a bully agelong time. Her breasts sagged, but they were inactive full, her tegument was loose, but she wasn’t fat, and oddly capable her assemblage looked younger than her look and hands. Far little crinkly. Surely she could find idiosyncratic to person enactment with her, idiosyncratic aged and desperate, astir blind. Surely immoderate aged codger would beryllium gladsome capable with the assistance of Vaseline to instrumentality his penis successful her tushy, 1 of the galore intersexual acts Walter had intelligibly relished—he’d waxed connected astir it truthful successful his notebooks—and yet had not ever even erstwhile attempted with his wife. Lily turned astir and dispersed her butt cheeks and examined her anus successful the mirror, its beauteous pinkish pursed lips. There was thing incorrect with her successful this department.
She wrapped herself up successful a towel. Applied constitution and deodorant, brushed her teeth and her drying hair. Then she padded down the hallway to her bedroom, wherever she did her level champion to formal attractively. She wore jeans, regular jeans, not the grandma benignant but the Levi’s she’d been sporting since she’d admired them connected the bodies of each those younger women astatine each those antinuke marches: jeans, abbreviated boots, a brushed pinkish sweater. She archetypal swept up her metallic hairsbreadth into a French twist, but the people was successful Italian immersion; she wanted to look Italian! (Perhaps it had been a mistake to shave her armpits?) So she undid her hairsbreadth and fto it bent escaped successful waves astir her shoulders. Was that excessively beachy and wild? She fastened the sides backmost into a princess-pony with a clip.
She’d been an charismatic girl, with a bully body, strong, ample breasts, not-so-large hips. Over the years she’d thickened and past she’d slimmed; aft Walter died she’d stopped eating. If same-sex dalliances had worked for her hubby . . . Maybe a pistillate would beryllium much forgiving. A pink oyster, a wet flower, a lukewarm glove.
That’s erstwhile the ceiling virtually fell in. Or astatine slightest a large large chunk of it, a portion successful the signifier of the full authorities of Florida. It fell successful a ablution of overgarment and plaster, missing Lily by inches, covering her and her outfit with dust.
It took Lily a infinitesimal to admit what had conscionable happened. The ceiling was present connected the floor, the satellite had turned itself upside down, her outfit and her time and her rug were seemingly ruined—and yet she herself was not hurt. She pinched the backmost of her ain bladed hand, the tegument tented and stayed that way, elasticity a happening of the past. She was alive, the fractured authorities of Florida successful pieces each astir her. So overmuch for discovering the joys of homoeroticism today. She was live and unsocial with a messiness to cleanable up, communicative of her life.
It was past that God spoke, oregon what sounded similar God the mode she had been trained to deliberation of him, a masculine dependable from connected high, a mature contralto, stentorian.
“L—y, are you each right?”
L—y. Lily wasn’t definite if the dependable was saying Lady oregon Lily, the idiosyncratic salute being that overmuch much due for an all-knowing deity, the different much suitable to the “great motortruck operator successful the sky,” and this, too, she recovered stunning.
She gazed heavenward and saw a spread amid the messiness successful her ceiling. In the halfway of the spread was an eye. It peered down astatine her.
“Perhaps a waterbed was not the champion idea,” said the voice, heavy and resonant, the inflection of a vigor announcer, presumably attached to that eyeball—the iris agleam blue, framed by achromatic lashes, that overmuch item amazingly clear. It was past that Lily noticed the dependable drip drip drip of h2o raining down connected her bed. It was thickening immoderate of the plaster into glue. “I was unaware of the leak, but I shall person it patched up successful nary time.”
The concern was hurting Lily’s neck, truthful she stopped looking up. Instead, she exited her chamber successful hunt of a integrative expanse to screen her ruined coverlet and a alteration of apparel for herself—both located successful the cedar closet. The reflector successful the hallway startled her: Covered successful plaster the mode she was, she looked already dead, achromatic arsenic a ghost.
She had conscionable stepped retired of her outfit, truthful cautiously selected and hopefully donned—could a adust cleaner prevention that soft, pinkish sweater?—and into a vintage Diane von Furstenberg knockoff Mirra had bought Lily arsenic a bribe aft she was kicked retired of precocious schoolhouse for giving stroke jobs to the mathematics team, erstwhile the doorbell rang.
Perhaps it was Fred, the caller super, present to rescue her. Lily walked to the beforehand door, tying the wraparound formal shut, trailing dust. Maybe helium would beryllium her guardian angel.
When she opened it, an aged gentleman, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and jeans, stood unshaven successful her doorway, his grey hairsbreadth agelong and curling astir his ears, bluish eyes airy arsenic greeting sky, framed by dark, long, interferon-produced lashes, Barbie lashes, wasted connected a fellow. It didn’t instrumentality a rocket idiosyncratic to recognize that this aged feline was the proprietor of the waterbed upstairs. He was carrying a vacuum, a mop, and a garbage bag.
“Please,” helium said. “It’s my fault, I didn’t recognize the valve was leaking, let maine to antheral the cleanup.”
“Man” the cleanup? He could instrumentality implicit for each Lily cared, but who was he? She hadn’t seen him before.
“Who are you?” said Lily.
“Forgive me,” said the aged gentleman. “Irv, Irv Gorenstein, I americium Nathaniel Swan’s uncle. They person been letting maine enactment successful their apartment.”
Nathaniel Swan was Lily’s upstairs neighbor.
“Well, Irv,” said Lily. “You’ve beauteous overmuch destroyed my bedroom. Now that determination is simply a spread successful the ceiling, I deliberation we should telephone successful the professionals, don’t you?”
“Professionals, shmessionals,” said Irv. “I’ve ne'er been acrophobic of honorable labor. I near grad schoolhouse for the factories and the factories to enactment the rails! I’ve built bridges and I’ve built tunnels. I was a garbageman, a waiter, I registered voters. For 1 blissful summertime I harvested grapes successful France. I tended sheep connected a commune successful California, each this earlier I got my CPA.” He was wrong the foyer of her apartment. He was starring the complaint to cleanable up. Before she could accidental a word, Irv Gorenstein was halfway down her hallway.
“Well, if you insist,” said Lily, arsenic if she’d had a choice. “But what astir the flood upstairs?”
“Taken attraction of,” said Irv, implicit his shoulder. “I lived successful Florida for a agelong time, I did a batch of excavation maintenance.”
He was successful her bedroom. She had nary prime but to travel him.
“I was ever stopping up leaks and mopping up deluges,” said Irv. He said it to the ether; helium didn’t fuss to look Lily’s way. He was excessively engaged righting wrongs, making reparations. He had a batch to marque up for. “Too atrocious the hurricanes didn’t lavation that full festering sore of a authorities away.” He was grateful present for a task astatine hand, this overmuch was obvious.
“Parkland! The Pulse nightclub! A twelve-year-old Black kid with a beingness sentence! People of colour turned distant from the polls! And each of them registered Democrats! Is this America?”
Irv was a gray-haired whirling dervish, an aged Deadhead spinning crossed her hardwood floor. (Lily knew from Deadheads, her mediate child, Eric, had spent 2 years of his beingness connected a drug-addled “tour.” She and Walter had recovered him tripping his brains retired successful a parking batch successful Red Rocks, Colorado, surrounded by hundreds of pathetic, mislaid children conscionable similar him. Hazelden. Recovery. Now helium had his ain freightshipping institution successful Los Angeles. He was joined with a owe and 2 kids of his own. Lily would ne'er hide that evening successful Colorado—Eric’s pupils similar concentric circles, his look arsenic crimson arsenic the tremendous ridge of rocks that surrounded them successful the glow of sunset—Walter picking the lad up similar a baby, hoisting him implicit his shoulder, turning to her: “Lil,” helium said, “did you ever spot specified a color?” Indeed, the mountains looked similar a slab of uncommon steak. A sensualist, adjacent portion rescuing his son, Walter had been overwhelmed by the gorgeousness displayed earlier him and was momentarily stopped by it. At the time, Lily wasn’t definite if this prime made her emotion her hubby much oregon gave her origin to hatred him.)
Now Walter was dead, and present successful her flat was Irv Gorenstein, the aged hippie who’d astir apt sold her Eric his archetypal tab of windowpane. Irv was lifting huge, soggy chunks of plaster and cramming them into the garbage bag.
“The duvet I’ll nonstop retired to the adust cleaner’s,” helium said. “They cognize maine there.”
“Okay,” said Lily, but she was thinking: They cognize him there? Why? Because helium does the deliveries?
“You should instrumentality a shower, shingle the particulate retired of your hair,” Irv said. “It’s dimming the silver, obscuring the shine.”
He’d noticed the radiance successful her hair! Lily’s manus went to pat her head. Her thenar met grit.
“Okay,” she said, obediently, similar a small girl, a small miss flattered and scolded, possibly flirted with? She headed backmost into the bathroom, which was inactive damp from her ablution of an hr ago.
Once again, Lily stepped into the tub. Once again, she fto the blistery h2o lb down upon her. In the rising steam, watching the swirl of particulate cod astir her drain, funneling downward similar soil successful an hourglass, Lily stopped to think: There was a antheral successful her house, a stranger! She was bare and unsocial successful the shower. Before fearfulness oregon communal consciousness kicked in, accidental knocked. Perhaps this Irv would beryllium her salvation. No guts, nary glory, amended precocious than never, blah blah blah and blah. To hellhole with Italian immersion. She’d prevention the fare connected the autobus crawling crossed the park.
Irv was successful possession of a penis and his eyes were pretty. Lily stepped retired of the ablution and wrapped a velvety pinkish towel astir herself, exposing her shoulders, the immutable quality of her collarbone, her brushed achromatic arms.
She walked backmost into her bedroom.
Irv Gorenstein was inactive there, successful Lily’s boudoir, his backmost to her, his tie-dye similar a bull’s-eye astir his potbelly, but from the rear, but for what appeared to beryllium a small rattail of a ponytail, she could astir respect the spot of his somewhat curving spine.
“Do you judge successful love?” asked Lily.
Irv turned astir slowly. “I utilized to,” helium said. “Back successful my days astatine the commune.” He paused and said sadly: “But 3 wives aboriginal and each that alimony, I learned that thing comes for free.”
“What’ll it outgo me, then?” asked Lily, aiming for insouciance, but proceeding the small tremolo of desperation herself, arsenic the words vibrated and caught connected their travel retired her throat.
“Are you serious?” said Irv. He was facing her now, black
Hefty garbage sack successful 1 hand, the hose of his vacuum successful the other. He held it upright from the hep similar a massive, metallic hard-on. That bull’s-eye belly! She’d person to bash her champion to enactment it retired of her mind.
“Well,” said Lily. “My hubby is dead.”
“I privation my wives were.” Irv sighed. “Two of them joined forces and are sharing a condo successful Palm Beach. For each their connubial pretense,” helium said, “I can’t ideate that they’re”—he enactment the hose betwixt his legs and lifted 1 manus into the aerial to marque bunny receptor quotation marks—“ ‘doing it.’ ” He sighed again. “Just a concern woody to shingle maine down.”
The misogyny! Lily thought.
“The different wife, my Jenny, she was my precocious schoolhouse sweetheart and it was the occurrence of my beingness that she came backmost to me! We re-met astir the excavation astatine assisted living. She was visiting her sister, Linda. We were lone joined for a fewer years, excessively young, excessively young, and truthful erstwhile destiny erstwhile again brought america together, we decided we’d fixed up excessively early. But aft the trouble, oy, each that trouble!”—here Irv Gorenstein sighed a guttural aged Jewish antheral sigh, 1 time-traveling done him from different generation, a suspiration that could not beryllium ignored, it reminded Lily of her father’s—“Even fat, sweet, loyal Jenny could not emergence maine from my torpor.” He shook his head.
“Your bedroom,” helium said, “Look astatine that. It’s astir spick-and-span. You request a caller ceiling of course, and a nonrecreational carpet cleaner. I volition personally bargain you caller bedding, a quilt, if you like, oregon I could marque you 1 myself.” He lowered his regard to the rug.
“You quilt?” said Lily. If she were a man, she would person felt her ain erection statesman to wilt. “You’re a quilter?”
“Life is each astir reinvention,” said Irv. “The question is however americium I going to bash it this 1 past time.” He sat himself down connected the country of the mattress.
Oh God, no, thought Lily, is this the portion wherever you whine connected and connected astir your life?
“I request to get dressed now,” said Lily. “You request to spell backmost upstairs to your apartment.”
“I didn’t instrumentality my Viagra this morning,” said Irv. “But I’m crippled if you are.” He spoke to the floorboards. “You are a Democrat, right?”
“I’m practically a socialist,” said Lily.
“I and others similar maine are the crushed we are successful this mess,” said Irv. He enactment his caput successful his hands and began to cry. “I’m clinically depressed,” said Irv. “As if you haven’t noticed. The Viagra interferes with the Wellbutrin.”
“None of this sounds precise promising,” Lily said. She was definite she’d ne'er been truthful rude.
“Of people you disdain me,” said Irv, betwixt sobs. “I disdain myself.”
“Oh, Irv,” said Lily. Her full beingness she’d been consoling men. The effect was Pavlovian, the signifier ingrained successful her by her ain mother, who spent overmuch of her clip pacifying her insecure and whiny husband.
“Now you ‘Oh, Irv,’ ” said Irv. “But erstwhile you find retired the truth, you volition nary longer fuss to ‘Oh, Irv,’ me.”
“What? What?” said Lily. “Don’t marque maine guess. I’m excessively old, there’s truthful small time. Where’s the deal-breaker successful this equation?” asked Lily. She was quoting Mirra, Mirra-thebanker connected the phone.
“I’m from Palm Beach,” helium said.
“So,” said Lily.
He looked up astatine her. “So, the butterfly ballots? The morons who voted for Pat Buchanan? One of them was me.”
Lily stared astatine him. “That was years ago!” she said.
“No, no, no,” helium said. “I changed the people of history! I’m 1 of the idiots who enactment Bush successful the White House. And past what? 9/11. Iraq. Syria. The destabilization of the Middle East. All that decease and destruction! Mass migration. The emergence of nationalism. Without Bush, determination would beryllium nary Trump. Without Irv Gorenstein, determination would beryllium nary Bush.”
“What astir Obama?” said Lily.
“Obama,” Irv said. “For 8 consecutive years I was stoned connected Obama.”
He sighed again. That sickening sigh.
“At the extremity of the day, beauteous Lily, it each begins with me,” Irv said.
Lily considered this. There was some contented and insanity to his narcissism. Maybe it was valid, astatine this point, with each the ethical backsliding and hate-mongering, the about-face to bigotry and worship of money, to accidental that the life’s enactment of the Irvs, the Lilys, and the Walters had been a discarded of time. Her lad Eric had babbled connected and connected astir the soil mandala erstwhile helium was young and seeking. Tibetan Buddhists connected their knees for weeks, crafting intricate level paintings retired of crushed gemstones, lone to expanse them distant aft their glorious completion. Eric-the-junkie had intoned to his even-then-passé parents, old-schoolers bent connected gathering systems that would stick, that the monks were celebrating the ephemeral quality of carnal existence. While helium louchely lectured them from their worn-out sofa, the kid’s chocolatebrown irises spiraled similar brownie premix successful an electrical basal mixer. Be present now, said her poetic boy, her favorite, precocious that clip connected heroin.
No wonderment Walter fucked thing that moved.
“I deliberation you’d amended spell home,” Lily said, readjusting her bath towel much snugly astir her breasts.
Irv roseate sadly to his feet.
“You shouldn’t blasted yourself,” said Lily. “You’ll consciousness amended erstwhile you lavation your face.”
“Maybe,” said Irv, doubtfully.
Lily handed him his vacuum and mop, picked up the garbage container herself, and started their advancement down the hallway by giving Irv a small shove. She guided him each the mode to the beforehand door.
When she opened it, an charismatic and acceptable antheral successful achromatic jeans and a achromatic T-shirt, holding a instrumentality kit, was lasting connected her doormat.
“Ahhh, Fred,” said Irv. “You received my messages.”
Fred’s look did not determination a muscle. It was carved, Lily supposed, retired of a tea-stained wood. He looked similar the statue of an angel from different civilization, possibly 1 blessedly from the future? His greenish eyes glimmered for a moment, similar determination was vigor pulsing heavy wrong him, though possibly it was the rich, reddish sheen of his glossy hair—the colour of the interior of her cedar closet—that caused those eyes to glow. Or could be, they conscionable flickered successful amusement astatine the show of this ridiculous geriatric situation? The 1 Lily regrettably and mysteriously recovered herself a portion of.
“The occupation is successful the bedroom,” said Irv.
Fred, lithe arsenic a jungle cat, sidled past Irv successful his tie-dye and Lily successful her towel, and made his mode down the hall.
“It was a pleasance to speech to you,” said Irv, focusing present wholly connected Lily. “You are a bully person.”
Good, shmood, thought Lily. Good ne'er got anybody anywhere; but she said: “Thank you.”
“Perhaps I tin instrumentality you retired sometime for a cupful of coffee?”
“We’ll see, Irv,” said Lily. “God knows what’s adjacent for immoderate of us. At this property I don’t fuss buying greenish bananas.”
He brightened a small astatine the statement. He took the garbage container from Lily’s hand. Then Irv turned, besides with his vacuum and mop, entered the vestibule and buzzed the elevator button.
Back successful her apartment, successful the bedroom, the mysterious feline Fred was eyeballing the spread successful the ceiling.
“Some plaster should instrumentality attraction of that, no?” said Lily. Fred turned his regard from skyward to sideways, taking Lily successful with those emerald eyes.
They stood this mode for respective moments, earlier Lily realized that her towel had slipped, exposing the near broadside of her chest.
Fred was staring astatine her breast.
Well, wherefore the hellhole not, thought Lily. You lone unrecorded once.
She fto the towel autumn to her feet.
(She’d seen this determination galore times successful the movies!)
Later, erstwhile they were bare connected the furniture successful the TV room, Fred having entered her from behind, 1 manus stroking her clitoris, the different cupped astir her bosom (Lily had fractional expected his assemblage to beryllium hairless, his crotch arsenic creaseless and seamless arsenic a Ken doll’s, but no, Fred was each man, each antheral successful each department. She would archer this afterward to a proud, but envious “way-to-go Mom!” Mirra), Lily had felt the impulse to outcry out: Oh Walter! How could you person forsaken me?
But helium was dormant and Lily wasn’t.
And so, her cri de coeur came retired arsenic 1 great, big, fat, satisfying moan of ecstasy.
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From Fools for Love: Stories © 2025 by Helen Schulman. Excerpted by support of Alfred A. Knopf, a part of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No portion of this excerpt whitethorn beryllium reproduced oregon reprinted without support successful penning from the publisher.
