Noni must have seen the discomfort on my face; she took hold of my hand. “You’ll do great, Fiona,” she said. “You’re a firecracker.” Her palm was dry and warm, and the weight of it startled me, the give of the fingers as they circled mine. Noni was not generally a toucher, a hand-holder, a you’ll-be-okayer. What I’d learned about self-reliance I’d learned from her. Now her unexpected touch calmed me down more than I expected. It was exactly what I needed.
“Fiona, you’re here!” It was Sandrine’s voice behind me. I released Noni’s hand and turned in to Sandrine’s skinny hug.
“You look beautiful,” I said. This was what I always said to Sandrine, because this was what she always wanted to hear. Tonight it was true. Sandrine’s dress was the color of cream, short and tight at the waist with a flared little skirt and a wide neck that showed off clavicles thin as chopsticks. Fat diamonds sparkled on her ears.
She smiled. “Can’t wait for the poem. Just watch for Kyle. He’ll start the speeches.” She winked. “Oh, and, Fiona,” she said, pulling me and Noni closer to her. “I already told your mom, but I’ll have my hairdresser do you both for the wedding.” Her eyes rested briefly on my hair—curly, loose, still wet from the shower. “That way we can all be on the same page. Okay?”
Noni looked at me with wide eyes and shook her head the slightest bit. No, Fiona, do not make a fuss, not tonight.
“Sure, Sandrine,” I said, smiling brightly. “Whatever you want.”
Flutter, flounce, ripple, bony, toothy, tart, brittle.
For a few uncomfortable minutes, Sandrine remained in our small circle while Noni issued compliments about the food, the view, the very nice waiters. Then Ace appeared beside us.
“Fiona Skinner, how the hell are you?” he said, and leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “You look fantastic.” Ace made a show of looking me up and down in a way that was not flattering but appraising, the look you’d give to a length of wood you were considering for a fence post. Was I durable? Would I need two coats of paint or three?
Ace had expensive shoes and impressive biceps from sessions with a personal trainer, but he still laughed with the same sharp bark I remembered from the pond. To me he would always be that little boy: not necessarily someone who acted with bad intent, merely one too weak and careless to follow through on the good. Now Ace worked in the music industry—not the creative side, something related to marketing—but still it lacquered him with a certain artistic patina when placed alongside Joe’s college friends in finance and law. He wasn’t a drug dealer, I learned later. It wasn’t that simple. He was the guy who knew how to get things, lots of things. People invited him to parties not because they liked him but because he was glamorous and useful. In Joe’s demographic no one was an addict. No one was losing their hair or teeth or sleep over the drugs, but they wanted them at certain times, and there was no way they’d hail a cab or walk down a seedy street to meet some stranger in a back alley. This was where Ace fit in.
“Thanks for being here,” I said carefully.
Ace grasped my hand and held it even as I began to pull away. “I love your family, you know that. I’d do anything for Joe. And I hear you wrote a poem for the happy couple.” He smiled. “Good for you, Fiona.” He released my hand and patted me on the cheek like a poodle.
There was a moment of silence, Ace and Sandrine standing stiffly side by side, and I suddenly realized they might not know each other. “Joe and Ace are friends from the pond,” I explained.
“Oh, I’ve already met Ace,” said Sandrine with a flap of her hand. “I’ve met all of Joe’s friends.” She paused. “But what’s the pond?”
“The pond?” I said. “Joe hasn’t told you about the pond?”
“Noooo.” Sandrine shook her head. “Is there something I should know?”
“Nothing,” Ace said smoothly. “There’s nothing you need to know about the pond.”
I opened my mouth to contradict him, to explain how much the pond had meant to us growing up, how that time was the foundation of Joe and Ace’s friendship, but before I could speak, a woman long and sleek as a heron moved in to greet Sandrine. “Look at you!” the woman said loudly, and then Ace sighted someone else across the room, and Noni and I were left standing alone.
I wish now that I had been more aware of the dynamics of that small interaction. Noni, Sandrine, Ace, and I, all of us positioned beside that mammoth, glorious window as the night descended and the view turned to shadows and sparkle. I had never seen Ace and Sandrine together, although I should have known they’d already met. Perhaps they had met many times.
From across the room, Man #23 was trying to catch my gaze. I studiously ignored him. What had I written about him? The sex itself had progressed according to convention: kiss, kiss, touch, stroke, clothing dropped, bodies positioned, give, slide. Nice, sweet, unremarkable sex. Afterward pale moonlight fell across the sheets. The city breeze and distant street noise drifted in like smoke. It was then that I looked at him, really looked. Freckles marked his entire body, up and down his legs and arms, across his shoulders. On his lower back, where the skin was smooth and hairless, lay a constellation of freckles. I traced those freckles with a finger. Yes, that’s what I’d written about for TheLastRomantic.com: Man #23, the freckles at the small of his back, their position nearly identical to the constellation of Andromeda.
* * *
How to describe the blog? It was a project that began innocently enough as the product of my healthy libido and a newfound sexual attractiveness that took everyone by surprise, myself most of all. What happened was that I became thin. I was twenty-four years old, newly arrived in New York City, still without health insurance, and I began to run. There was no grand plan, no Twelve Steps to a New You. The running was simply a free activity that took place outside the cramped apartment I shared with college friends of similarly pinched circumstances. Along with the exercise, I maintained a strict weekly budget that allowed for only two meals per day. Or one meal and alcohol. The combination led to the initial weight loss—some twenty pounds in two months—and by then I was hooked. Cheekbones emerged, an ass and a waist. It was fun, like shifting your image in a funhouse mirror to see the shapes you could make.
With my new body came a certain kind of power. Men’s heads flipped like Ping-Pong paddles as I walked past. Taxis were easier to come by, and good tables at restaurants, and drinks, so many drinks, sent my way by well-wishing, generally far older men. At first I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t trust it. I didn’t trust the men. I asked Renee, “How do you deal with it?” This was before she met Jonathan, when I believed my oldest sister to exist on a plane beyond the base needs for sex and affirmation.
“I just ignore it,” Renee said. “I never make eye contact, and I don’t wear makeup. And I have a can of Mace in my bag.”
But Renee and I had different perspectives. I didn’t want to think about risk or violence. I knew how to be careful; I’d learned the lesson of the man in the car. Now I only wanted a free martini. I only wanted to have some fun.
So I did. It was the grand transformative fantasy of every pudgy teenage girl who’d been overlooked, taken for granted, ignored by the many and diverse objects of her affection. Over the next year, I flirted and slept with every type of man I’d lusted after in high school and college—the jocks, prom kings, bad boys, stoners, and class presidents—and then I moved on to all the others. I dated some men for a few weeks here and there, but I happened upon a relationship only once: Eli, a tall and earnest publishing intern who broke his leg in a spectacular bike accident that required a twelve-week convalescence. During this time I brought him groceries and toilet paper. I held his cast outside the shower curtain to keep it from getting wet. Something about this vulnerability and need made me want to stay, plus the knee-to-thigh cast and the pulleys installed above his bed made the sex interesting and acrobatic. But once Eli’s physical therapy ended and he was walking again, I broke up with him. Eli cried.