“I don’t think I’m that ticklish,” he said.
“Oh.” She stopped.
“I mean, I’m probably a little,” he added, “just not a lot.”
“I would like you to meet my son,” she said.
“Is he here?”
“He’s under the bed. Bruny?” Oh, these funny ones were funny.
“What is his name?”
“Bruno. I call him Bruny. He’s with his dad this week.”
The extended families of divorce. Ira tried not to feel jealous. It was quite possible he was not mature enough to date a divorced woman. “Tell me about his dad.”
“His dad? His dad is another pediatrician, but he was really into English country dancing. Where eventually he met a lass. Alas.”
Ira would write that down in his book. Alas, a lass. “I don’t think anyone should dance in a way that’s not just regular dancing,” said Ira. “It’s not normal. That’s just my opinion.”
“Well, he left a long time ago. He said he’d made a terrible mistake getting married. He said that he just wasn’t capable of intimacy. I know that’s true for some people, but I had never actually heard anyone say that out loud about themselves.”
“I know!” said Ira. “Even Hitler never said that! I mean, I don’t mean to compare your ex to Hitler as a leader. Only as a man.”
Zora stroked his arm. “Do you feel ready to meet Bruno? I mean, he didn’t care for my last boyfriend at all. That’s why we broke up.”
“Really?” This silenced Ira for a moment. “If I left those matters to my daughter, I’d be dating a beagle.”
“I believe children come first.” Her voice now had a steely edge.
“Oh, yes, yes, so do I,” he said quickly. He felt suddenly paralyzed and cold.
She reached into the nightstand drawer, took out a vial, and bit into a pill. “Here, take half,” she said. “Otherwise we won’t get any sleep at all. Sometimes I snore. Probably you do, too.”
“This is so cute,” Ira said warmly. “Our taking these pills together.”
He staggered through his days, tired and unsure. At the office he misplaced files. Sometimes he knocked things over by accident — a glass of water or the benefits manual. News of the coming war, too, was taking its toll. He lay in bed at night, the moments before sleep a kind of stark acquaintance with death. What had happened to the world? March still did not look completely like spring, especially with the plastic sheeting duct-taped to his windows. When he tried to look out, the trees seemed to be pasted onto the waxy dinge of a wintry-looking sky. He wished this month had a less military verb for a name. Why March? How about a month named Skip? That could work.
He got two cats from the pound so that Bekka could have some live pet action at his house, too. He and Bekka went to the store and stocked up on litter and cat food.
“Provisions!” exclaimed Ira.
“In case the war comes here, we can eat the cat food,” suggested Bekka.
“Cat food, heck. We can eat the cats,” said Ira.
“That’s disgusting, Dad.”
Ira shrugged.
“You see, that’s one of the things Mom didn’t like about you!” she added.
“Really? She said that?”
“Sort of.”
“Mom likes me. She’s just very busy.”
“Whatever.”
He got back to the cats. “What should we name them?” One should always name food.
“I don’t know.” Bekka studied the cats.
Ira hated the precious literary names people gave pets — characters from opera and Proust. When he’d first met Marilyn, she had a cat named Portia, but Ira had insisted on calling it Fang.
“I think we should name them Snowball and Snowflake,” said Bekka, looking glassy-eyed at the two golden tabbies.
“They don’t look like a snowball or a snowflake,” said Ira, trying not to let his disappointment show. Sometimes Bekka seemed completely banal to him. She had spells of inexplicable and vapid conventionality. He had always wanted to name a cat Bowser. “How about Bowser?” In the pound someone with name tag duty had named them “Jake” and “Fake Jake,” but the quotation marks around their names seemed an invitation to change them.
“Fireball and Fireflake,” Bekka tried again.
Ira looked at her, he hoped, beseechingly and persuasively. “Really? Fireball and Fireflake don’t really sound like cats that would belong to you.”
Bekka’s face clenched tearily. “You don’t know me! I live with you only part-time! The other part of the time I live with Mom, and she doesn’t know me either! The only person who knows me is me!”
“OK, OK,” said Ira. The cats were eyeing him warily. In time of war never argue with a fireball or a fireflake. Never argue with the food. “Fireball and Fireflake.” What were those? Two lonely middle-aged people on a date.
“Why don’t you come to dinner?” Zora phoned one afternoon. “I’m making spring spaghetti, Bruny’s favorite, and you can come over and meet him. Unless you have Bekka tonight.”
“No, I don’t,” Ira said mournfully. “What is spring spaghetti?”
“Oh, it’s the same as regular spaghetti, you just serve it kind of lukewarm. Room temperature. With a little fresh basil.”
“What should I bring?”
“Oh, perhaps you could just bring a small appetizer and some dessert,” she said. “And maybe a salad, some bread if you’re close to a bakery, and a bottle of wine. Also an extra chair, if you have one. We’ll need an extra chair.”
“OK,” he said.
He was a litttle loaded down at the door. She stepped outside, he thought to help him, but she simply put her arms around him and kissed him. “I have to kiss you now here outdoors. Bruny doesn’t like to see that sort of thing.” She kissed Ira in a sweet, rubbery way on the mouth. Then she stepped back in, smiling, holding the door open for him. Oh, the beautiful smiles of the insane. Soon, he was sure, there would be a study that showed that the mentally ill were actually more attractive than other people. Dating proved it! The aluminum foil over his salad was sliding off and the brownies he had made for dessert were still warm and underneath the salad bowl were probably heating and wilting the lettuce. He attempted a familiar and proprietary stride through her living room, though he felt neither, then dumped everything on her kitchen table.
“Oh, thank you,” she said and placed her hand on the small of his back. He was deeply attracted to her. There was nothing he could do about that.
“It smells good,” he said. “You smell good.” Some mix of garlic and citrus and baby powder overlaid with nutmeg. Her hand wandered down and stroked his behind. “I’ve got to run out to the car and get the appetizer and the chair,” he said and made a quick dash. When he came back in, handed her the appetizer — a dish of herbed olives (he knew nothing about food; someone at work had told him you could never go wrong with herbed olives: “Spell it out — h-e-r b-e-d. Get it?”) — and then set the chair up at Zora’s little dining table for two (he’d never seen one not set up for at least four), Zora looked brightly at him and whispered, “Are you ready to meet Bruny?”
Ready. He did not know precisely what she meant by that. It seemed she had reversed everything, that she should be asking Bruno, or Bruny, or Brune, if he was ready to meet him. “Ready,” he said.
There was wavery flute music from behind a closed door down the hallway. “Bruny?” Zora called. The music stopped. Suddenly a barking, howling voice called “What?”
“Come out and meet Ira, please.”
There was silence. There was nothing. Nobody moved at all for a very long time. Ira smiled politely. “Oh, let him play,” he said.