Close Relations by Susan Isaacs

“There’s something I want to make clear.”
    “Perfectly clear?” I had demanded.
    “Yes. I’m serious.”
    “Nobody with a huge gob of shaving cream on his chin can be taken seriously.”
    “Marcia, I hope this arrangement lasts for a long time.” I had nodded, swallowed. “But I don’t want to get married. It has nothing to do with you. It’s just a decision I made a long time ago, about what’s best for a guy like me.”
    “Fine. Sure.”
    “Okay. I just don’t want any misunderstandings.”
    “No. Of course not. There won’t be.”
    “No hurt feelings. No pressure a year from now.”
    “Absolutely not,” I had vowed, watching his jawline emerge in the razor’s wake. “I value my independence as much as you value yours.”
    “Good,” he had said, nodding his approval to the bathroom mirror.
    I never tried to tie Jerry’s life into a knot, and that was probably my chief attraction. I was company at breakfast, company in bed, but I restrained any word or gesture that might interfere with his privacy. He continued to cherish his independence. I allowed myself only an occasional quiet thought about having him always, about a bright-eyed baby with a lilting cry, so perfect my family’s hearts would collectively melt. But most of the time, I remained a realist.
    I leaned across the bed and stroked his cheek. “You don’t have to talk,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to pressure you.”
    A moment passed and then Jerry turned onto his side, facing me, and stretched out his arm toward me. The black hair stopped at his wrist, making a neat, natural cuff. I reached to stroke it but he slid his hand under my nightgown, working it up slowly between my thighs. “What can I do for you tonight?” he asked, his voice slow and silky. “What would make you happy, Marcia?”

Five
    J erry’s face had the soft, misty aura of someone who is loved. For three weeks, Paterno had been wooing him at breakfast meetings, office lunches, and working dinners, trying to convince him that the mild flirtation with Lyle LoBello hadn’t meant a thing, that his heart would always be true to Jerry. By the beginning of April, Jerry had permitted himself to be seduced.
    “Jerry.”
    He gazed out of the grimy taxi window into the foggy, chilly night.
    “Jerry?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.” On behalf of Paterno, we were heading uptown to a political affair, something called Dollars for Dick, a fund-raising dinner for Richard Krasnoff, who had retired gracefully from the House of Representatives after twenty-two years of selfless service and was now, sadly, the subject of a very intense and doubtless grossly unfair investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “You look wonderful tonight,” I murmured.
    “Thanks,” he said, abruptly. Jerry did not take compliments very gracefully, nor did he tolerate discussions about his appearance.
    His response to his extraordinary looks was largely denial. When we were first getting to know each other outside of the office, sitting over coffee and trading vignettes of our childhood, exchanging dead father stories, I had asked him about his handsomeness.
    “Were you a beautiful child?”
    “Cut it out, Marcia.”
    “I mean it. Did the little girls lust for you in the sandbox? What was it like, growing up knowing people loved to look at you?”
    “This is a ridiculous conversation. I was a normal kid. I went to school, played ball—”
    “But didn’t you have an abiding sense that you were different?”
    “Nope.”
    He knew though. He dressed neatly but unimaginatively, ignoring changes in style. When he heard that my ex-husband, Barry, had used hair spray, he had laughed with surprise. But his casualness was just an attempt to downplay his dazzle. He wanted to be one of the guys, trusted, relied on, and he sensed that other men distrusted beauty.
    So he muted his flash, except when it became a political weapon. Fund-raising for Paterno, he’d slowly lower his