Naked Read online

  I set the bowl on the kitchen table to listen to her. From the dining room I heard laughter. “I can imagine.”

  Elle laughed gently. “Well, anyway, a Christmas ham I could do, but how do you brag about that to your boyfriend’s parents when they’re Jewish? I needed something to impress them. They’re not terribly religious, but they’d invited me for Passover, and I decided I was going to make matzo ball soup. Well, let me tell you something, Olivia, in the vast world of matzo balls, you have what’s called floaters and sinkers. And I made sinkers.”

  We laughed together. “What happened then?”

  “Oh, they ate them. Nobody complained. I was mortified, obviously, but Dan’s family just took me in and made it all part of their joke. Not in a bad way. They made me feel at home. It was just after that I decided I really could marry him, after all. So Passover’s special to me for that reason, even though I never have learned to make floaters.”

  “That’s a nice story. Now you have one of your own,” I told her.

  Elle looked surprised for a second before smiling again. “Yes. I guess we do! C’mon, these potatoes are as finished as they’ll get without burning. Ready to go in?”

  I got the guacamole and followed her into the dining room full of family and friends.

  Everything about me was buzzing, and it had nothing to do with the wine I’d had as part of dinner. I’d stayed much later than I’d planned, laughing and talking with my new friends. I’d asked to borrow a Haggadah to read at home, and Elle had given me a few books to read, too. I’d driven home humming “Dayenu.”

  Alex’s car was in the parking lot when I pulled in, but with my hands full of books and leftovers packaged in aluminum foil, I didn’t knock at his door on my way past. I tucked the food into my fridge and stacked the books by my bed, where I did most of my reading.

  My life had tilted and gone off balance. Everything about tonight had felt right in a way nothing had for a long time. The prayers had made sense. The story had spoken to me. I wasn’t sure what to make of any of it, just that suddenly a door had opened inside me the way we’d opened it to welcome the prophet Elijah.

  Something had shifted inside me, and for the first time, I thought I might have started to find my way.

  I drifted into the shower to let the steam and heat unkink the knots in my shoulders and neck as I thought about the evening. I was very glad I’d gone tonight.

  Mascara came away on my fingertips when I rubbed at my eyes, suddenly more tired now that I realized I had to get up in the morning to put a few hours of work in before I went to Foto Folks. I tipped my face to the spray and let it wash me clean. I didn’t bother to shave, just rinsed off the soap and got out to wrap a towel around me.

  I came out of the bathroom and screamed at the top of my lungs as a figure whirled to face me. “Shit! Alex!”

  His pink button-down lay open at his throat; his khaki pants were neatly pressed and belted at his waist. He’d slicked back his hair or had it cut, I couldn’t quite tell which. I saw his jacket slung over the back of my couch. I could smell the sharp tang of pot.

  I took a step back from it.

  “You’re home.” Alex didn’t sound high; he didn’t move like he was slow and dopey. He jittered, as a matter of fact.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I pressed a hand over my chest to feel the thunder of my heart inside. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Sorry.” He moved forward to kiss me. “I let myself in, heard the shower running. Figured I’d stay out here so you didn’t think I was getting all Norman Bates on you.”

  This close, all I could smell was cologne, and I wondered if I’d imagined the odor of marijuana. I looked into his eyes, which searched mine, but weren’t red-rimmed. His tongue slid over his lips and he kissed me again, and I tasted mint. Nothing more.

  “You scared me,” I repeated lamely.

  “Sorry.” He flicked the hem of the towel. “Sexy.”

  I clamped my arms tight to my sides to keep the towel from sliding down my breasts. I was waterlogged, exhausted, still spinning from the night and aware at the same time that Alex looked as if he’d stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. “Let me go put something on.”

  “I like you like this.” He pulled me closer to search my mouth with his. His hand slid beneath the towel to find my skin warm and wet from the shower.

  I kissed him and could do nothing about his roaming fingers unless I wanted to risk dropping the towel. I squirmed, laughing. “Stop it! I have to go put something on!”

  “Why?”

  “Because…just because.”

  His smile seduced me. Opened my thighs. Made me let the towel slip down so the curves of my breasts showed, the hint of nipple. His hand drifted under the towel, up and down, moving so slowly and softly I couldn’t find it within me to protest.

  “Come have a glass of wine,” he murmured into my ear.

  “Alex, I have to work in the morning. And I’ve already had wine tonight.”

  “Me, too, but so what?” We moved in a small circle, dancing, my head on his shoulder. In my bare feet I had to stand on my toes to reach it. Now I pulled away to look at his face.

  “You did?”

  Something like a shadow flickered in his gaze. “Yeah. Couple of glasses.”

  “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  A crevasse a whole inch wide yawned between us. His hands had come to rest on my hips, and his fingers tightened there, bunching my towel. “I never said I didn’t drink.”

  “But you never…Forget it,” I told him. I scanned his face, the set of his mouth. “I thought you were at a meeting, that’s all.”

  “I was. A dinner meeting. And then I met up with some friends. We had drinks. Is that all right?”

  I wanted to step away, but his grip held me just tightly enough I’d have had to make it obvious I wanted out of his embrace. “It’s fine. I’m just surprised, that’s all. You hadn’t mentioned seeing friends in Philly.”

  “I didn’t know I needed your permission to have a couple of drinks or to have friends, Olivia.”

  I leaned in again to take a long, deep sniff. Then I did step away. “I thought I smelled pot, before.”

  Alex didn’t look guilty, but he sure as hell looked something. “I smoked a joint.”

  “You drank and smoked pot and drove all the way home?”

  “I smoked the joint downstairs while I was waiting for you,” he said too casually.

  I thought of New Year’s Eve, the night I’d come home to find him holding a cigarette. The first time we’d kissed. “I didn’t think you smoked.”

  “I quit cigarettes, but a joint’s not…Hey, hey,” he said as I stepped away. “One small joint, and only half of it. It was some old shit I had floating around, not even any good.”

  I clutched the towel, hitching it higher, and shook my head. “Wow. Just…wow.”

  I turned and headed for my bedroom to pull on a T-shirt and pair of sleep pants. Alex followed, too close on my heels. I wouldn’t look at him.

  “I didn’t know you cared,” he said when I didn’t turn.

  I used my towel to squeeze the water from my hair, gently, so as not to fray the locks. Then I grabbed up a bottle of oil from my dresser to rub through them. I wasn’t sure how I meant to answer him, only that whatever words were lying in wait down deep in my throat tasted bitter on the back of my tongue.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but didn’t sound it.

  I turned then. “It’s not that I care, exactly. Lots of people drink, Alex. Lots of them smoke pot now and then. But you never have. And I have to wonder, why now? Why tonight? I have to wonder what the hell is going on with you lately?”

  This struck him hard enough to make him flinch. “Olivia—”

  I held up a hand. “No. Don’t even give me a bunch of bullshit for an answer. I’m not hearing it.”

  “How do you know it’s bullshit, if you won’t let me tell you?” His quirked smi