The Actor and the Housewife (7 page)

She caught Mike’s eye and waved so he would see where she was going. He nodded, still dancing.

Moving into the quiet corner was as much of a relief as walking into shade on a blazing day. She’d never in her trimmed-and-tidy life been so accosted by stares—except that one time when she’d left the church restroom with the back of her skirt tucked into her pantyhose.

“Thanks again for your help with the contract,” she said as they passed a marbleized Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television. “Nothing’s happening with the film, of course, but Annette gave me five thousand dollars for the option. After taxes and all, it’ll be enough to cover the baby delivery bills, and just in time.”

“Oh, I see, you’re still expecting. For some reason, I thought you said you’d already had your baby.”

Becky stopped so fast, her low heels squeaked, and she glared at Felix until he actually stepped back and adjusted his tie.

“Were you raised in a barn? Don’t you know that you never,
ever
assume a woman is pregnant? Not even if she’s nine months and in labor—Not ever, never, never!”

He winced. “I . . . er . . .”

“I just had the baby six weeks ago, and it was my fourth pregnancy and it takes time for a body to readjust, and I haven’t had more than two hours of sleep in a row since December, and I’m normally a very nice person but I would like to hit you.”

“Then you probably should. On the jaw.”

“Are you serious?”

“Quite.” He stuck out his jaw. “I’m ready. Bombs away.”

She readied her fist.

“No, no,” he said, “get your thumb out of your fist, and you need to pull back more. That’s it. Get a good range and extend your arm all the way.”

She pulled back, pictured hitting her target like Mike had taught her to do before driving a golf ball, then swung. She struck him dead in the jaw. He wheeled around, clutching his face.

“Ow! Oh!”

“Really?” she said, rubbing her knuckles. “Did I really hurt you? You’re just faking it to make me feel good.”

“No, not faking.” He was still hunched over. “That was a proper punch.”

She clapped her hands. “Wow! I’ve never hurt someone before, especially not someone who deserved it so much. Can we do it again?”

“I’m certain I’ll do something else to deserve it before long. In the meantime, mind if we step outside and let the night air cool down the swelling?”

He offered his arm again and she took it. His left elbow was becoming familiar. Mike and Celeste were still dancing, Mike’s back to her. Becky waved, indicating that they should join them outside, and Celeste nodded, holding up one finger.

No one else was out in the chilly February air. Felix gave her his tuxedo jacket. The sleeves reached her palms, and she thought of how Mike’s coats engulfed her fingertips.

She reached to touch Felix’s red cheek, then stopped herself. “Is it sore? Does it hurt to the touch?”

“It does, actually.”

She giggled. “That was so great!”

“I’m so happy to have obliged.”

“You did offer.”

“I did. And I deserved it.”

The cold hadn’t touched Becky yet. She folded her arms and leaned against the stone balustrade, looking over the sporadic lights of Salt Lake City, up to the black outline of the mountains against a sparkly, starry sky. Beside her Felix was quiet too. She figured he was bored and was waiting for Mike and Celeste before restarting the conversation. That was fine. At the moment, she couldn’t drum up enough energy to make herself be entertaining. She sensed his eyes on her, probably gazing at the Fred Meyer surgical-steel-post earring with genuine pink enamel fl owers in her right ear. That little beauty should charm him more than anything she could say.

She felt deeply content to be out of the house and in a world full of air and a moon and Felix Callahan too, even if he was contemplating the abomination that was her cheap earring. The air between them was becoming warm, like the pockets of tepid water her toes found when swimming in a cool lake. And she felt—she actually felt a little tug on her chest. On her heart. As if her heart were tied to his by a string. No doubt a hallucination caused by new-mommy dementia, she thought.

It
was
strange, though, wasn’t it? That she was standing in silence with Felix Callahan, and neither of them seemed the least bit uncomfortable? That he’d come at all, that he’d wanted to dance with her. If she were a different kind of woman, she’d suspect Felix was falling in love with her. Which of course was impossible. But she was in the right setting—attending a ball, dressed in a gown (or at least, something of that genus), leaning against a marble balustrade with a handsome, famous, wealthy man. It was a shame that such a moment was wasted on Becky Jack, married mother of four. She tried to imagine what it would be like if she were someone else, some single, childless beauty, staring up at a sly moon. It was a scrap of a moon really, a fingernail clipping, hardly worth contemplating. If this were a true romantic moment in a screenplay, Becky would beef the moon up, round it out, make it silver and startling in its beauty. She relaxed into a sigh and got carried away rewriting the moment.

The moment slows. The moment feels like silver. The night isn’t
cold, the lights of the city rise up and surround her like stars crowning
her head. She feels her knees go soft, her middle woozy. Man, she
really is tired. [Strike that—she’s not tired at all. She’s young and
vivacious and twenty-nine.]

He cups his hand around her jaw, running a thumb over her
cheek.

Kiss him, instinct urges. Kiss him and see if it’s like being
struck by lightning, if your world changes from mundane to movie,
if everything you thought was true is a lie and you fall wildly
in love.

And as he leans and she almost leans, the synapses in her brain
begin to fire like a lightning storm. A kiss. Now. Here. Is this her
moment? Has she been living in a movie without knowing it, her
story leading up to this? The rush of warmth through her limbs, the
frantic kick of her heart, the deliciously cold jolt in her belly—maybe
this is the best thing in the world. And forget pragmatics and
sanity—live for such a moment as this. Live.

She is definitely leaning now. Her body sighs—her joints
soften, her breath relaxes out of her lungs, her eyes even start to
close—and his lips are so near . . .

“What?” Becky jerked around much faster than Felix’s question could possibly warrant. No more daydreaming. Sheesh, thank goodness mind reading only existed in comic books, because if anyone had overheard her thoughts just then, she’d have to bury herself alive.

“I was wondering if you’re cold. You shivered.”

“No, I’m fine.” Goose bumps lined her arms, thankfully hidden by his jacket.

“Mind if I put my arm round you?” he asked.

“What?”

Felix smiled. “You love that word.”

“What? I mean . . .” Definitely no more daydreaming. Just imagining that had made her feel all swoony and discombobulated. And had he just asked to put an arm around her? She took a very tiny step away.

Where were Celeste and Mike? Standing beside Felix (post-daydream) was becoming chancy. He was her number one, after all, and here they were, alone. Well, alone besides her pink maternity dress, the bulk of which should count as its own separate entity. But still.

She turned to face Felix, meaning to say something smart, churn up the sudden solemnity, find something to laugh at again. But his look made her forget what she’d been about to say—he was intense, no humor about him now. She’d never noticed his eyes before, not even on the screen (she’d been too wrapped up in the whole package to analyze the parts). But seeing them now made her feel as if she’d known them for years. Wise eyes, sad eyes.

“It’s good that we’re together.” She snapped her mouth closed. Had she just spoken that line aloud? Shut up, Becky, shut up!

Felix breathed out. “It’s a relief to hear you say that.”

Her mouth was gaping, and completely without her permission.

“Because the thought of you has been driving me crazy,” he said.

She barely stopped herself from saying, “What?”

“I need to ask you a favor.” He turned to her fully. His eyes took her in. They were bedroom eyes, I-vant-to-suck-your-blood eyes. She shivered.

His voice was all soft and yummy, and the sound of it went inside her, down into her knees. “Becky, may I kiss you?”

Did he just say that? Not possible. She’d imagined it audibly. Maybe she was the one who’d been hit in the head.

But then his hands were on her shoulders. His look was full of purpose, his eyes saying that she was the only thing worth looking at in the whole world. She was so disconcerted she didn’t extricate herself from his hands and back away, as she surely would have had she been normal, sane Becky. That was when his lips parted just a little, and he started to
lean
.

Becky made a face. “Whoa, wait, hold on a sec. What are you talking about?”

“A kiss,” said Felix, raising one hand to the back of her neck. “One kiss.”

“But . . .” She laughed in disbelief. “But why?”

There was something in his look now, his quiet features, the way he glanced at her and then down again as if too shy to stare straight-on—it was more Calvin the sexy pet shop owner than the Felix who didn’t have a surplus of damns.

He’s acting, she thought.

“I need to see if what I’m feeling means what I think it means,” he said.

“You do not.”

“I do actually.”

“Balderdash. You just got thumped in the head. Wow, I didn’t know I could hit so hard. I might’ve really done some damage.”

His hands dropped from her. “Why won’t you let me kiss you? This isn’t something I envisaged we would argue about.”

“You
envisaged
kissing me?”

“Well . . . yes, but I was eloquent and you were rational.”

“And in your fabulous daydream, what happened next?”

“Actually it ended there, which is why I wanted to kiss you, to see what would happen next. But I’m rapidly reconsidering that desire.”

“Well, thank goodness for that, since, according to your envisaging I’m so enthralled by your sexual powers I have no self-control.”

“It’s not as if I was happy about having to kiss you.”

“What is this, some bet? Some bad-boy prank?”

“It is not a prank,” Felix said, his voice strong, his eyes angry. He slammed his fist down on the very hard marble. “I thought I was falling in love with you!”

She stared at him, and he stared at his fist, and the staring went on long enough for Becky to realize that she was finally getting cold.

“That’s crazy,” she whispered.

He wagged his head in a kind of befuddled, helpless agreement. Should she pat his shoulder consolingly? Check his pupils? Scream for security? Then it started. She tried to hold it back, but the harder she tried to hold it back, the more insistent it was, until she choked on it. Then out it came—a hard, loud laugh.

“Sorry . . . I don’t mean to . . . sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I’d rather you didn’t kiss me, if that’s all right.”

Felix leaned back and sighed, his smile cheery. “Do you know, I don’t think I’d actually fancy kissing you after all. That’s good to know.”

“Isn’t it? Man, when we got to the eye staring, I was sure I was living in Bizarro World.”

He looked over her dress, his chest shaking with a chuckle. “That really is an unsightly rig.”

“At last I get some honesty out of the man!”

“I was being honest before.”

“What, when you wanted to kiss me?” she said with a teasing smile. “When you thought you were falling in love with me?”

He shrugged. And that motion stilled her to her core, made her stand fast and look at him now, read him as she would a child she suspected of lying. But she detected no telltale signs of dishonesty. He was serious. He’d really thought—“You really thought—”

“I don’t know what the hell is going on,” he said, raising his arms in a helpless gesture. “If you were the least bit attractive—”

“Hey!”

“If I felt the smallest itch of desire for your body—”