And as much as I loved the dinners, I loved afterward almost as much, when Lacie would return from escorting the last guest out and collapse onto the couch. I’d get the wine from the table, and we’d sit around, lazily trading tidbits from the night.
Tonight we sat in contemplative silence for a bit, until Lacie chuckled softly to herself. “Well, you’ve got to hand it to Sophie. First she was bored with her husband, now she’s bored with her boyfriend.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
Lacie leaned forward to scoot her glass onto a paperback. “I know, right? It’s crazy. I probably shouldn’t talk about it, but yeah, basically Sophie’s been having an affair for years.”
“An ‘affair’?” I hadn’t known we were old enough to have affairs. I hadn’t known our generation believed in affairs. Wasn’t the idea that you were supposed to file for nonmonogamy in a procedure that I had always vaguely conflated with filing for bankruptcy? You were supposed to talk about it, at least. We were the talk-about-it generation. “It’s been going on for years?”
“Well, Aaron’s really bad at sex. He’s totally hung up on his mother.”
“Wait, this has to do with his mother?” She sounded so cavalier.
“Don’t you remember? How Sophie said there was some thing?”
It took me a moment, but once I did, the memory came back like a chill, Sophie saying, “You can feel this old way of being haunting them,” and Lacie and I ashamed, avoiding each other’s eyes.
“Oh, right,” I said now. “But does Sophie think he’s like, literally in love with his mother?”
“Something like that. He’s just not that into sex. Who knows. Don’t repeat this, by the way. I mean, lots of people know, but it’s supposedly a secret.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” I was shaking my head like a stunned idiot. “And here I was, thinking that her life was basically perfect. I was envying it.”
Her life sure looked perfect. She was tiny like a doll. She worked at The New Yorker. Regularly she moderated panels and interviewed intellectuals and wrote wry, precise blog posts. Three years ago, she had married the son of a famous Conceptual Minimalist, and together they had bought a two-bedroom and filled it—or so I imagined—with books and limited-edition prints and strange liquors in beautiful bottles from distant lands. To envy her showed no imagination. It was stupid. I tried not to do it, but I couldn’t help envying Lacie for how much Sophie liked her, how clearly Sophie enjoyed being her friend. Especially given that Sophie had basically rejected me.
Lacie cocked her head at me. “Maybe it is perfect.”
“She’s having an affair!”
Lacie shrugged. “Well, people do the best with the lives they have. Sophie gets to have her needs met,” Lacie used air quotes, “or whatever, and Aaron gets to have this beautiful wife who adores him. It’s not ideal, but under the circumstances, I think it’s fine. I mean, it sounds like Aaron is just not a very sexual person. For whatever reason.”
I tried to imagine what Aaron looked like. I pictured him moist around the mouth, with dark hair that fell into gelled ridges. Finally I said, “I don’t know if I believe in someone just not being a sexual person.”
“What do you mean? You don’t think that’s a thing?”
“Not really. Not unless there’s been some kind of damage. Which it sounds like maybe there was.”
“Like, anyone who’s not super into sex must be kind of messed up?”
There was something wrong with Lacie tonight; she was wound up. But I stuck to my guns: “It sounds awful, but yeah. I don’t think someone’s just born without a sex drive. I don’t buy it.”
“I don’t really like it,” she whispered.
“You don’t?”
She winced. “Is that horrible to say? It’s fine. But it’s just—it gets a little boring. I feel like we’re all supposed to be these enlightened women who are totally sexually fulfilled, but sometimes I just think, Eh. Couldn’t we just read a little? Or go to sleep?”
As someone who had endured several periods of involuntary celibacy, Lacie’s attitude was incomprehensible to me. She sighed. “I mean honestly, sometimes I just wish Ian would be more chill.”
“You mean about sex?”
“Yeah, kind of. Is that terrible?”
“No. Wait, what’s he like?”
Did she suspect? Hesitation played over her face. Primly she said, “I’m sure he wishes we were having sex more often. But sometimes I just don’t want to be touched.”
A weird triumph snaked through me. Lacie was bad in bed. All my life I’d envied her coolness, the way she never chased men. But—I thought, astonished at the simplicity of it—it’s because she doesn’t need it. A million bucks said she just lies there, her big gray eyes wandering around the room. No wonder my appetite drove Ian mad. No wonder we couldn’t stop.
“I get that,” I said slowly. “Sometimes you want your space.”
“Yeah, and I mean, maybe eventually he’ll go fuck someone else, but whatever. I don’t really care. I feel kind of European about it.”
“You feel kind of European about it,” I repeated slowly.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not like I would want to know. But we haven’t really talked about exclusivity. It’s just obvious that what’s happening between us is very intense. It feels big.” She looked at me urgently, with that razored stare that she unleashed sometimes, a laser beam shooting out from her usual vagueness.
Probably—I realize now—she only wanted to see if I understood what she meant. But in that moment all her words doubled and stretched. What was she trying to tell me? That she knew? That she didn’t mind? Lacie had always worked by implication and discretion, high-stakes negotiations conveyed through metaphor. By her usual standards, this was downright direct.
“It feels big, but you don’t care if he’s dating someone else.” I had to be sure. I held all the muscles in my face absolutely still.
“Well, not dating.” She frowned. “But sleeping with, sure. It’s just, obviously we’re significant to each other. It’s not like the occasional fuck is going to change that. Whatever’s happening between us, it’s big.” A girlish smile played on her lips.
“You like him.” In my voice, accusation. What about all those times she had complained about him? What about the way he never came over? How big could it be, especially if she didn’t mind “someone else” sleeping with him?