“I said someday, Love. Someday is a word that women don’t understand. It means, possibly, in the future. Women always want to know when, when, when. But all I’m saying here is someday. Someday I’d like to get married, someday I’d like to have children. Look at Mack. He told Maribel ‘someday’ for six years, and now they’re going to tie the knot. So, you see, someday really exists.”
“You want a child someday, but not anytime soon,” Love said. She waited a beat. “And maybe not at all.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say not at all. I would like a child someday. And I just defined someday. Why are we having this conversation?”
“What conversation?” Love said. She was officially perspiring. She couldn’t tell him what was happening in her body; he thought she was on the pill. She wanted a baby more than she wanted to tell the truth. “Back to the story,” she said.
When Jerome grew older, he became attracted to women who reminded him of Lula. Women who worked hard and drank hard, women who mistreated him. First, there was Nan. Jerome met Nan when he was fourteen and she was twelve. She would tongue kiss him one minute and the next minute she would punch his thigh and call him a fag. It wasn’t long before Jerome was in love with Nan.
After Nan came Delilah, who, like the biblical Delilah, insisted Jerome cut his hair. Jerome was so crazy for Delilah, he not only cut his hair, he shaved his head.
“Wait a minute,” Love said. “Our hero just shaved his head for some woman named Delilah. Does any of this ring true? Did you shave your head for a woman?”
“I told you why I shaved my head,” Vance said. “I like to feel the sun.”
“Jerome shaves his head for a woman named Delilah.”
“That’s Jerome,” Vance said. “He’s a fic-tion-al character.”
“Would you shave your head for me?” Love asked.
“I think the question is, would I grow my hair for you,” Vance said. “And the answer is yes. I’d do anything for you.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Vance said. “In fact, I’ve been wanting to ask what you think about me coming out to Aspen this winter.”
“Aspen?” Love said. This was getting out of hand. “What about going back to Thailand? I thought that was a definite.”
“That was before I met you,” he said.
“Okay, wait,” Love said. “Wait, wait. This is all moving so fast.”
“Don’t you want to give this a fighting chance?” Vance said.
“I’m not coming back to Nantucket next summer,” Love said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing.”
“I’m not stuck here either, you know,” Vance said. “If Mack can leave, I can too.”
“I thought you wanted to work here without Mack. I thought that was the goal of the last twelve years. You’ll finally be in charge.”
“Let me put it to you this way,” Vance said. “I wouldn’t be opposed to moving to Colorado.”
Moving to Colorado? Love froze up with fear. Moving to Colorado?
“Let me finish your story,” she said.
“I should shower,” Vance said. “How are you getting to work?”
“Blading,” Love said. Vance had to be at work earlier than Love so he could supervise the beach boys. As part of their routine, he’d been driving her home in the evenings, but as far as Love could tell, no one at the Beach Club knew she and Vance were seeing each other. Everyone was absorbed with the craziness of their own lives. Jem even caught Vance and Love standing in the utility closet-they were kissing when he opened the door looking for some bleach-and he didn’t seem to think finding them in the dark closet together was strange. He just stood there and said glumly, “I need bleach,” and after Love handed it to him, he closed the door.
While Vance was in the shower, Love tried to finish the story, but she found herself sucked back to those terrifying words, moving to Colorado. She closed her eyes and saw sperm shooting through her, racing for her waiting egg. She felt dizzy. Wait! Stop! she wanted to say. He wants to move to Colorado! Stop!
Love tried not to think about it. She read somewhere that 70 percent of conception was will, a positive attitude, and so she would fight her body with her mind. She would think negative thoughts, ugly, sad thoughts. She picked up Vance’s story and skimmed through the pages to the end.
Jerome goes to college and gets a degree in hotel and restaurant management. He falls in love with an Italian girl named Mia, and marries her in a big, opulent wedding with lots of uncles and homemade gnocchi and finger kissing. Jerome and Mia open an Italian restaurant called Mamma Mia’s. It’s a very successful venture until some of the customers start getting sick and dying. Turns out Mia is putting poison in the red sauce.
Love reread that part. Could that be right? Mia, poisoning the red sauce?
Jerome gets sued and the business goes belly up. Mia is indicted and Jerome spends all the money he has left on her lawyer, a man (suspiciously) named Mark Paterson, with whom Mia falls immediately in love. She wants a divorce from Jerome so she can marry Mark when she gets out of jail. She’s sentenced to thirty years.
Broke and without his wife, Jerome returns to his hometown and finds his mother sitting on a barstool at JD’s Lounge drinking a bloody Mary, but when he approaches her she pretends she doesn’t know who he is, and when he starts to repeat, “I’m your son. It’s me, Mom, Jerome,” she has the bouncer throw him out.
The story ends with Jerome buying a bottle of Courvoisier and setting out to drive his Datsun into the side of the Browning Elementary School. Without question, a downward spiral.
Love lowered her feet from the footboard and stood up. She jumped on the balls of her feet. A stream of warm semen trickled down the inside of her thigh. She was shaking from head to toe when Vance came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I’ve conceived. We’ve conceived. How easily this too could become a downward spiral. Vance suing for custody and taking away the child that was meant to be hers alone. Stealing her dream.
“I read your story,” Love said, and she burst into tears.
Vance put his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head. “It’s just a piece of fiction.” He ran his hands down her bare back, which, much to her dismay, aroused her.
She knocked his hands away. “You have to leave,” she said.
“Come on,” he said. “I can be a little late. The boys know what they’re doing.”
“You have to leave!” Love was so disappointed with herself, letting this get out of hand. First he wanted to visit Colorado, then move there, and the next thing she knew he would be asking her to marry him, he would be interested in fathering the child that was only minutes old inside of her. “Get out!” she said, pointing to the door.
“You hated the story,” Vance said. “You thought it was trash.”
“That’s not it,” Love said. “Your stupid story has nothing to do with it.”
“It’s not a stupid story,” Vance said. “It is a published story. My only published story.”
“Listen, I need some space, okay?” Love said. “I see you every day at work, and I see you every night. Can you give me some space for a couple of days? Please?”
Vance dropped his towel and angrily stepped into his boxer shorts. “You hated my story. And the irony is, I let you read it because I thought you would understand. Ha! I should have known that I, Vance Robbins, am utterly un-understandable. Story of my life.” He slid on his red shorts and pulled a shirt over his head backward. When she touched his arm, he shrugged her off. “I’m leaving,” he said, twisting the shirt around his body. “Enjoy your space.”