Expiration Dates: A Novel (10 page)

Irina returns from New York Wednesday late morning, complaining about travel bloat and insisting on a water cleanse that's supposed to last twenty-four hours. Around four she asks me if I want to order pad thai, extra spicy, extra vegetables.

“Do you have plans?” she says, standing in her kitchen, silk robe–clad, opening a bottle of merlot.

“No,” I say honestly. Jake and I had lunch yesterday, Kendra is home with her husband, and Hugo is in New York until Friday. This makes me pause. I used to have friends, but now, if it's not for a wedding, bachelorette party, or birthday, I rarely see anyone. Part of it is that by the time we made it to thirty most of my friends moved away—to New York, San Francisco, Seattle, DC. Wednesday night drinks were replaced with weekly texts. Some of them—most of them—have babies, now. It's hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious
effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can.

Irina gestures toward a stool at the counter. “You want to stay?”

Hanging out with Irina is like hanging out with a very glamorous, very self-serving therapist. She wants to buy you dinner, a designer bag, and listen to your problems, which she will cast as gossip from across the couch.

“Sure.”

She takes down another wineglass and pours, then sets the drink in front of me.

“So,” she says. “Kendra tells me you're seeing someone.”

I cough out a laugh. “When will I learn your motives are never altruistic?”

“Hopefully never,” Irina says. “But now that we're here, tell me everything.” She comes to sit beside me at the counter. “Shrimp fried rice?”

I nod.

“And some summer rolls, so we can say we tried.”

She types in an order and discards the iPad on the counter.

“What's his deal?”

“He's nice.”

“Nice?”

“Nice is underrated.”

“I'm almost twenty years older than you—”

I raise my eyebrows but don't say anything.

“So I can assure you, nice just means bad in bed.”

“I don't think that's true,” I say.

“You don't think or you know?”

“We haven't slept together yet.”

Irina lifts her wineglass at me. “I'm telling you. It's been a while, but: kind spirit, limp dick.”

“I'm adding that quote to your bio.”

She smiles. “If you're happy I'm happy, sweetheart. You deserve only the best.”

I take a small sip of wine. “Thank you. How's Penelope?”

Irina shakes her head. “Sometimes I feel like I'm sixty fucking years old having the relationship of someone twenty-five.”

“Isn't that a good thing?”

“Not if you're sixty fucking years old.”

I try not to think about aging. At least, not aging in relationships. Part of the beauty of the paper is that it allows me to be present. To not plan ahead too far, not further than specified. Until now.

“I guess,” I say. “I haven't really thought about it too much.”

Irina puts a hand over mine. I can feel the cold metal of her silver cocktail rings on my skin. “Oh, sweetheart,” she says. “I'm sorry. Don't listen to me. Penelope and I have been through the wringer and back again, but I do love her. Very much. I'm just jet-lagged, and an old lady.”

“You're not old.”

“Of course not,” she says. “I'm thirty-five.”

The doorbell rings then, and I lift myself out of the chair, but Irina waves me off.

“I'll get it.”

She pads out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the front door. I hear a woman's voice on the other side.

I take my phone out of my bag. A missed call from my mom, a text from Kendra confirming the plan to see the new Marvel
movie at a screening this weekend, and one from Jake. It's a linked article: “Tracking the History of the Carburetor.”

It immediately makes me smile. And then I read it. Turns out the last carburetor was used in 1994.

I get it, now. You're McFly.

A moment later my phone pings:
High-level response.
And then a second:
What are you doing tonight?

At my boss's.

It's almost seven!

I'm off the clock. We're just hanging.

I see the bubbles appear and disappear, appear and disappear, then:
Up for a drink after?

We meet at Zinqué, a restaurant on Melrose with mediocre food but great atmosphere. Jake orders us both tequila and lime and we settle into a two-top in the corner. He's wearing a white long-sleeved waffle-knit Henley and dark jeans, and the ends of his hair are still wet from the shower. He smells good, too.

“What did you do tonight?” I ask him.

“I participated in a fantasy draft.” He makes a
Yikes
face. “Feel free to show yourself out.”

“I used to play soccer when I was younger,” I say.

Jake's face lights up. “Me too! I sometimes still play in this league here. It's coed, if you ever want to come.”

I shake my head. “Oh, no. Exercise isn't really a part of my adult life, what with all the sweating, and the fact that I now have a hair-care regimen. But that sounds fun.”

Jake's eyes graze over me. “I find that hard to believe.”

I pick up a strand of hair. “OK, fine, it's not a regimen—it's more like I use conditioner now, but still.”

Jake smiles and shakes his head. “Not what I mean.”

I hold his gaze. “I know.”

Our drinks come. I squeeze the lime on the ridge into the drink and drop it inside.

“So you and your boss are buddies?” Jake asks.

“I wouldn't say buddies, exactly. But, yes, I do like her. And I don't often turn down free Thai food.”

Jake nods twice in rapid succession. “Free Thai food. Noted.”

“She's cool; she's extremely talented. She produces like twenty movies a year. I respect the hustle.”

“Is that what you want someday?”

I'm not sure what to say.
No, not really, I don't have that kind of drive?
Or:
I still, at thirty-three, am not entirely sure what I want to do with my life.

“I think I'm kind of a commitment-phobe.”

Jake clears his throat. “Say more.”

I put my elbows on the table. It's wood, unrefined. Lots of black hardware.

“I got kind of stuck after college, and, truthfully, sometimes I still am. It's not that I don't like my job, I do. I enjoy movies, I like assisting—I honestly think I'm good at it. But I don't know if I want Irina's job. I guess the most honest answer would be that I don't think I can have it.”

I see Jake's eyes searching mine. “Why?”

“I feel like I missed the chance, maybe? I waited too long? Everyone I know who is on a stratospheric trajectory identified the steps a long time ago.”

“I don't think that's true,” Jake says. “You hear all the time about people getting their first acting job at fifty, directing their first movie at sixty, going back to medical school in their forties.”

“When was the last time you heard about someone going to medical school in their forties?”

Jake sips, swallows. “I read about it. My point is it happens, all the time. There isn't just one way to achieve things. You can always be the exception.”

I am the exception. I am the exception in so many ways—the anomaly, the point at which the sequencing blinked. I have something no one else does. Or, at least, to my knowledge no one else does. It feels selfish, maybe, to think I could be extraordinary in other areas, too. Maybe even dangerous—tempting fate just a little too far.

“You have to really want it,” I say.

Jake looks at me, and I see it, what he means. Depth. The willingness to journey down, right to the center.

“Do you?” he asks.

His face is open, his shirt is unbuttoned at the collar. He looks like a door I could walk right through. And I want to. I want to let myself in. I want to tell him, this new place, all the things he does not yet know.

But it isn't time. We are just beginning. The big, deep questions I cannot get into. They are locked in a box under my bed. Sheets and sheets of paper.

I woke up in Big Sur and rolled over, reaching for Hugo. All I was met with was blank space. I sat up and looked outside—it was barely light out, the room was still half in shadow, the sun making a lazy debut. “Hugo?”

No answer.

I was naked underneath the covers, and I closed my eyes, replaying the images of the previous night—Hugo's mouth on my neck, his hands beside me, at my hips. The thick, heady sound of his voice.

There was a bathrobe slung over the chair by the bed, discarded from the night before, and I looped it around me, threading my hands through the arms and tying the knot.

Where was he?

I swung my feet over the bed, slid into slippers, and walked out onto our terrace.

The forest surrounding us was still sleeping. No sounds of
traffic or voices or electronics—there was even a visual silence. I could not see a single light or building, with the exception of the two bungalows in eyesight. Everything was pristine, untouched by all the color and sound of modern life. Below me, the ocean inhaled and exhaled in long, languid breaths.

When I was young, my parents would take me to Manhattan Beach. We'd park our car high up, to avoid parking lot fees, and then walk down the steep streets to the beach boardwalk. Sometimes we'd bring bikes, but mostly we set up shop in the sand: towels, a big umbrella, and a cooler full of food. My mother would always let me help her pack, so I knew in addition to rye bread and cheese there would be Goldfish and chocolate chip cookies. My father would go for a run in the sand, my mother always brought a book, and I'd haul back and forth between the ocean and her, screaming, running—salty and free.

The ocean was alive, then. I remember thinking if I just swam out far enough I could reach the crease where the water meets the sky. I could touch the horizon, run my hand along it's smooth edge.

Looking down at the ocean in Big Sur I wondered when that belief faded. Was it in a classroom, learning the world is round? But I have no memory of an aha moment, no recollection of any specific revelation. When do we stop believing in the things we do? And why does it happen so slowly instead of all at once?

It was cold out on the balcony. Probably close to forty degrees. I pulled the robe tighter around me and stuffed my hands down in the pockets. I could feel myself waking up, coming to life with every hazy, visual breath. One month. That was all it took. Four weeks to know that I wasn't going to listen. That no matter what
that paper said, it wouldn't matter. I wanted him. I wanted to wake up with him and go to sleep with him. I wanted to stand behind him in the bathroom mirror in the morning, my face pressed against his wet back, as he got ready for work. I wanted his feet to find mine in the middle of the night. I wanted to be his first phone call, the place he rested from the chaos of the rest of the world, the constant friction of the pace of his life. I wanted to be
it
for him. I wanted so much more than ninety days. I wanted everything.

“Good morning.”

I turned to see Hugo making his way toward me. He was wearing his running clothes and carrying two coffees. He sipped from one, and then set them down on the side table and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned my head into his chest. He was damp from his workout, and he smelled like our surroundings—sweaty and earthen.

I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair. His eyes looked into mine.

“Hey,” he said. “How did you sleep?”

But I just shook my head. I moved my hands to his face and then reached up, balancing on tiptoes, and kissed him.

His mouth tasted like coffee, and I pulled him down—wanting him closer, tighter in.

Hugo's hands found the tie of my robe, and then they were untangling me, letting the terry cloth fall open. When his fingers landed on my body, they were cold, and I reacted back, but it took no more than a split second for my skin to adjust to his temperature. His fingers drew strokes against my abdomen—up and down.

I pulled him inside.

We tore at each other. Clothes, running shoes, the rest of the robe. I sat back in bed, and he leaned over me, breathing hard.

“You are so sexy,” he said. He didn't let the words run.
So. Sexy
. “Tell me what you want.” His voice was ragged, hazy, like the morning around us.

“I want you.”

He leaned down and put his lips on mine. He held his body against me so there was no space between us. I felt the weight of him—his significance—all six feet two inches. “I'm right here,” he said.

And then he was pressing into me. I closed my eyes and then opened them, and saw him looking back at me. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, his shoulders worked in tandem, rolling toward me, I reached up and grabbed onto his biceps.

I was, all at once, struck by two opposing feelings. The desire to stay that way forever, to never break apart, to spend my whole life in that state of intimate ecstasy. And then: to experience that release. The pleasure of certainty, of knowing that what was coming, had.

I felt that fire building in me. It started in my belly and radiated out to my limbs, fingers, feet, and toes, until I was engulfed in flames.

“Hugo,” I said. He moved in answer—under me, over me, inside me. Everywhere, all at once.

“Tell me,” he said, right into my ear.
Tell me tell me tell me.

Sorry,” Jake says. “The breaker on the hall light is out. Here.” I feel Jake's hand grab mine as we walk in darkness through his front door and then the click of a switch, and light.

His apartment is the same as it was the other night—but a little bit tidier—the blanket on the couch is folded with no corners showing, there are no errant glasses on the table.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Jake asks.

“Just water,” I say.

“Coming right up.”

He disappears into the kitchen, and I sit down on the couch. The night is foggy, and the darkness outside feels blanketing, heavy. Or maybe it's just that I've finally stopped moving.

Jake hands me a glass and settles down next to me. “It's tap,” he says. “My Brita broke.”

“I don't believe in Britas,” I tell him. “I think they are a scam.”

He squints. “You're probably right.”

I take a sip and set it down on the coffee table. Jake puts a hand on my knee and then threads his fingers through mine. I feel the warmth of his hand, the warmth of him. And then I feel something else—some other force creep in between us. Expectation, maybe. The knowledge that what happens now matters in a way it never has before. All the things I know that he doesn't.

“Jake,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“There's something I have to tell you.”

He sits back until he's looking at me, but he doesn't release my hand. I feel his thumb run over my knuckles.

“What's up?”

“I'm not—” I say. “I'm not exactly like other women.”

Jake laughs. “I'm well aware of that,” he says. “And I very much like it.”

I shake my head. “The thing is—” I take a breath, figuring out what to say. How do I tell him that I know something that will change his life irrevocably? How do I share something this unbelievable?

“It's OK,” Jake says. “You don't have to do anything you're not ready to do.”

And then I feel it—all at once, like a whirlpool in my stomach. The pull of my attraction for him. It's shows up spontaneously, like a genie in a cloud of smoke. Poof.

“No,” I say. “I want to.”

Jake puts a hand on my face, and then we are kissing. In seconds I'm on top of him, my knees on either side of his stomach, my mouth on his neck, my hands in his hair, on his shoulders, grasping for anything I can reach.

His hands work down my back to my waist. Our mouths do battle—like we're trying to find something in each other, some hidden key buried under teeth and gums and bone.

He sits up further, his hands cupping my shoulders, and then he kisses my ear. “Do you want to go to my bedroom?” he asks. His voice is ragged, but it breaks at the end—the comedy sneaking in.

“Yes,” I say.

He stands up and takes my hand and leads me back. I inhale and exhale slowly as we walk. I've never been in his bedroom before. White walls and a blue comforter. There are framed photos on his nightstand and dresser. He's behind me, his hands on my waist. I pick up a photo.

“Who's this?” I ask.

There's a tiny blond child, a girl, all ringlets, smiling as she hangs over a goldendoodle puppy.

“Maya,” he says. His lips land on my earlobe. “I'll tell you later.”

“Your sister's kid?”

Jake stops, exhales. “Yeah. She's sunshine.”

“She looks it.”

“I love her so much,” he says. “I honestly can't believe how fast she is growing up. It's crazy. It's like a miracle or something.”

There is no posturing with Jake. He is so pure—everything he says, he means.

Jake whispers into my ear. “Do you want children?”

I have not spent a lot of time thinking about kids. I had no idea how they would fit into this equation. But that doesn't seem like the right answer here. I'm not even sure it's true anymore.
There's something about Jake that makes me want to be honest. Maybe the truth is I don't know what I really want. Maybe it's changing.

“Not tonight,” I say.

He smiles and moves his hands to my back. I loop my arms around his neck and then we are locked back together. We fall onto the bed, and Jake scrambles to get the pillows off.

“Someone explain decorative pillows to me,” he says.

“No one knows, everyone just has them.”

“We need to start asking ourselves why.” He takes a silk blue-and-brown-striped one and tosses it dramatically to the foot of the bed, then turns back to me.

“Sorry,” he says. “Where were we.”

I get up and turn off the light. And then I lean back over him in the darkness. I walk my fingers up his chest and pull down on the collar of his shirt. “Here,” I say.

He threads his hand through my hair and brings my lips down to his. His kisses are incredible. Soft and seeking and increasingly urgent. Like the quiet roar of a tidal wave. All of a sudden, I feel like we're about to be swept underneath the surface.

Our clothes come off quickly.

And then he's lying on top of me naked. It's quiet in the room. I can hear my breathing.

Jake gets a condom from the nightstand, and then he's back, kissing my neck, his hands tracing my belly.

“Is this OK?” he asks.

I move underneath him in answer.

I do not believe sex is a marker of anything but what you assign to it. It does not measure the seriousness of a relationship, is not
a barometer for the amount of feeling, and has little to do with love, at least in causation. But lying underneath Jake I wonder if sex might express something else—some level of tenderness. If we might be able to judge not the strength of a person's feelings but the measure of their care.