Queen of Babble

I told Andrew all this, not just in my reply to his question about what foods I liked, but that night we spent together as well, three months ago, me in my towel and him in his Aerosmith T-shirt-it must have been laundry day-and R.A. badge, under the stars and smoke.

And he didn’t listen. He hadn’t paid a bit of attention to a word I’d said.

But he had managed to let his family know I was a-what was it again? Oh yes-“fatty.”

Is it possible I’ve made a mistake? Is it possible-as Shari once suggested-that the reason I love Andrew is not because of who he actually is, but because I’ve projected onto him the personality I want him to have?

Could she be right that I’ve stubbornly refused all along to see him for what he really is, because making out with him had been so much fun (and I’d been so flattered by his full stiffy) I don’t want to admit my attraction to him is merely physical?

I hadn’t spoken to Shari for nearly two hours after she said this, it had made me so mad, and she’d finally apologized.

But what if she’s right? Because the Andrew I knew-or felt like I knew-wouldn’t have told his brother I’m fat. The Andrew I know wouldn’t even have noticed I was fat.

“Lizzie?” Shari’s voice crackles over the phone I’m pressing to my cheek. “Did you die?”

“No, I’m here,” I say. I can still hear rock music booming in the background. Shari, it’s clear, isn’t a bit jet-lagged. Shari’s boyfriend isn’t at work. Or, rather, he is. But they’re working together. “I just…Look, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

“Wait,” Shari says. “Does this mean you’ll be coming to New York with me in the fall after all?”

I hang up. It’s not that I’m mad at her, exactly. I’m just…

So tired.

I don’t even remember bathing or changing into my pajamas and dragging myself into bed. All I know is, it seems like it’s about a million o’clock when Andrew gently shakes me awake. But it’s really only midnight-at least according to the watchface he shows me when I groggily ask what time it is.

I never realized he wears a glow-in-the-dark digital watch. That’s kind of…not sexy.

But maybe he needs it. For telling time when he’s slaving away in that dark, candlelit restaurant…

“Sorry to wake you,” he says. He is standing beside my loft bed, which is just high enough off the ground that he doesn’t even have to stoop to whisper to me. “But I wanted to make sure you were all right. You don’t need anything?”

I squint at him in the semidarkness. The only light is the moonlight that streams through the laundry room’s single narrow window. Andrew, I can see, is wearing black jeans and a white shirt-a waiter’s uniform.

I don’t know what makes me do it. Maybe because I’ve been so lonely and depressed all evening. Maybe because I’m still half asleep.

Or maybe because I truly do love him. But the next thing I know, I’m sitting up and, my fingers entwined in his shirtfront, I’m whispering, “Oh, Andrew, everything’s so awful! Your brother Alistair-he said something today about your having said I was a fatty. That’s not true, is it?”

“What?” Andrew is laughing into my hair as he nuzzles my neck. He is quite a neck nuzzler, I’m finding out. “What are you talking about?”

“Your brother, Alistair. He acted all shocked when he met me, because he said you’d told him I was fat.”

Andrew stops nuzzling my neck and peers down at me in the moonlight.

“Wait,” he says. “He said that? Are you taking the mickey?”

“I don’t know anything about Mickey,” I say. “But, yes, he really did say he’d been expecting me to be fat. ‘A fatty’ were his exact words.”

I realize, a little belatedly, that Andrew might possibly become a little ticked off with his brother for having said this-especially if it’s not true. Which it can’t be. Right? Andrew would never say something like that…

“Oh, Andrew, I’m sorry,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him tenderly. “I can’t believe I even brought it up. Forget I said anything. Alistair was obviously pulling my leg. And I fell for it. Let’s just forget the whole thing, all right?”

But Andrew doesn’t seem willing to forget it. His arms tighten around me, and he uses some very choice adjectives to describe his brother, which he whispers against my lips. Then he says, “I think you look fucking fantastic. I always have. Sure, when we first met, you were a bit plumper than you are now. When I first saw you coming out of Customs at the airport in that little Chinese dress, I didn’t even recognize you. I couldn’t stop staring. I kept wondering who the lucky bloke was who was meeting such a hot little number.”

I can only blink at him. Somehow his words are not as encouraging as I think he means them to be.

Maybe it’s because of his seeming inability to pronounce his th’s as anything but f’s, so his thinks come out as finks.

“Then, when I got the page, and I came over and saw you were-well, you-I realized I was the lucky bloke,” Andrew goes on. “I’m sorry everything has been such a cock-up so far-my mate’s flat falling through, and your not having a proper bed, and my arse-hole of a brother, and my fucking work schedule. But you have to know”-here he snakes an arm around my waist-“I’m over the moon that you’re finally here.” This is where he leans down and kisses my neck some more.

I nod. Much as I am enjoying the neck kissing, there is still something weighing on my mind. So I say, “Andrew. Just one more thing.”

“Yeah, what’s that, Liz?” he wants to know as his lips approach my ear.

“The thing is, Andrew,” I say slowly, “I really…I…”

“What is it, Liz?” Andrew asks again.

I take a deep breath. I have to do this. I have to say it. Otherwise it will be hanging over our heads for my entire stay.

“I really hate tomatoes,” I say all in a rush, to get it over with.

Andrew raises his head to look at me blankly. Then he throws back his head and laughs.

“Oh God!” he whispers. “That’s right! You wrote me that! Mum asked me what you particularly liked, so she could be sure to have it for your arrival breakfast. But I couldn’t remember. I knew you’d said something about tomatoes-”

I try not to take it personally that he remembered I’d said something about tomatoes, but not WHAT I’d said about them. Like that I hated them more than anything in the world.

Andrew is guffawing now. I’m glad he finds the situation so uproarious. “Oh, you poor girl. Don’t worry, I’ll drop a hint. Come here, let me kiss you again-” He does so. “You really are a keeper, aren’t you?”

I hadn’t been aware there’d been any doubt on that score.

But I know what he means.

Or I think I do, anyway. It’s hard to tell what I think while he’s kissing me, except Hooray! He’s kissing me!

And then there’s no whispering at all for a while, as we kiss.

And I can tell that Andrew’s brother is wrong-he doesn’t think I’m a fatty…unless he means fatty in a good way. He likes me. REALLY likes me. I can feel that like pressing against me through his waiter pants.

Which I feel duty-bound to help him remove. Because they seem so binding.

When he’s laughingly scrambled up into my loft bed with me-thank God it holds. Or, I should say, thank you, Mrs. Marshall-and the two of us are in each other’s arms again, I see why. The pants were so binding, I mean.

“Andrew,” I whisper, “have you got any condoms?”

“Condoms?” Andrew whispers the word back like it’s foreign. “Aren’t you on the pill? I thought all American girls were on the pill.”

“Well,” I say uncomfortably, “I am. But-you know, the pill doesn’t protect you against diseases.”

“Are you suggesting I have a disease?” Andrew demands-not in a joking way, either.

Oh dear. Why can’t I ever learn to keep my mouth shut?