Good in Bed

Bruce, evidently, had other thoughts. “You should get going,” he said, removing himself from my arms and walking into the bathroom without looking back at the bed.

This was unexpected. “I can stay,” I called.

Bruce came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “I’ve got to go to temple with my mom in the morning, and I think it would, um, complicate things if…” His voice trailed off.

“Okay,” I said, remembering my vow, to be an adult, to think of what he needed instead of what I wanted, even though what I wanted was more along the lines of a long, slow, sweet snuggle, followed by both of us drifting gently off to sleep – not this hasty retreat. “No problem,” I said, and pulled my clothes back on. No sooner had I straightened my panties then Bruce was grabbing my elbow and walking me toward the door, hustling me past the kitchen and the living room, where, presumably, his mother was waiting and his friends had regrouped.

“Give me a call,” I said, hearing my voice trembling, “whenever you want.”

He looked away. “I’m going to be kind of busy,” he said.

I took a deep breath, willing the panic to subside. “Okay,” I said. “Just know that I’m there for you.”

He nodded gravely. “I appreciate that, Ca

SIX

When I took Psychology 101, the professor taught us about random reinforceme nt. Put three groups of rats in three separate cages, each equipped with a bar. The first group of rats got a pellet every time they pressed the bar. The second group never got pellets, no matter how often they pressed. And the third group got pellets just once in a while.

The first group, the professor said, eventually gets bored with the guaranteed reward and the rats who never get treats give up, too. But the random rats will press on that bar forever, hoping each time they press that this time the magic will happen, that this time they’ll get lucky. It was at that moment in class that I realized that I had become my father’s rat.

He’d loved me once. I remembered it. I had a handful of mental pictures, postcards that had gotten soft around the edges from being handled so often. Scene one: Ca

I remember being ten years old spending whole days with my father, ru

But days like that became rare as I got older. The truth was, my father mostly ignored me. He ignored all of us – Lucy, and Josh, and even my mother. He came home late, he left home early, he spent his weekends in the office or on long drives “to clear my head.” Whatever affection we got, whatever notice he paid us, was parceled out in small doses, administered infrequently. But oh, when he loved me, when he put his hand on my head, when I leaned my own head against him… there was no feeling in the world that could beat it. I felt important. I felt cherished. And I would do whatever it took, press the bar until my hands bled, to get that feeling again.

He left us for the first time when I turned twelve. I came home from school and there he was, unexpectedly, in the bedroom, piling undershirts and sock balls into a suitcase. “Dad?” I asked him, startled to see him in the daytime. “Are you… are we…” I wanted to ask if we were going somewhere – a trip, maybe? His eyes were heavy and hooded. “Ask your mother,” he said. “She’ll explain.” And my mother did explain it – that both she and my father loved us very much, but they couldn’t work things out between the two of them. I was still numb from the shock of that when I found out the truth of what was going on from Hallie Cinti, one of the popular girls. Hallie was on my soccer team, but in a completely different league socially. On the field she frequently looked as though she’d prefer that I not pass to her, as if my foot on the ball could transmit my own personal taint and send nerd-germs creeping through her cleats. Three years later she’d be infamous for administering restorative blow-jobs to three of the five starters on the boys’ basketball team during half-time of the state play-offs, and we’d all be calling her Hallie Cunti, but I didn’t know that yet.

“Heard about your father,” she said, plunking herself down at my table, which was in a corner of the lunchroom where Hallie Cinti and her ilk rarely ventured. The chess club kids and my friends from Junior Debaters stared, open-mouthed, as Hallie and her friend Je

“Heard what?” I asked warily. I didn’t trust Hallie, who’d ignored me through six years of school, or Je

Hallie, as it turned out, couldn’t wait to tell me. “I heard my Mom talking about it last night. He moved in with some dental technician on Copper Hill Road.”

I toyed with my peanut butter sandwich, buying time. Was this true? How could Hallie’s mother know? And why was she talking about it? My mind was fluttering with questions, plus the half-remembered faces of all the women who’d ever scraped my teeth.

Je

Well. So that would explain the gossip. Hallie and Je

“So is it true?” Hallie asked impatiently.

“It’s no big deal,” said Je

Divorced, I thought, tasting the word. Was this really what was happening? Would my Dad do this to us?

I lifted my eyes to the popular girls. “Go away,” I told them. I heard one of my debate friends gasp. Nobody talked to Je

Je

I walked home slowly and found my mother in the kitchen, with about ten half-unpacked bags of groceries arrayed on the counters and dining room table. “Is Dad living with someone else?” I blurted. She shoved three packages of chicken breasts into the freezer and sighed, her hands on her hips.