There's Something I Want You to Do

“Yes, here.” This was where they had first met. “Look down.” She followed his instruction. Below them, water flowed in the indifferent darkness, sovereign in its shadowy blankness. “Pretty funny, right? Your phone is down there in the water. Well, here we are, sweetheart. Here’s where I found you. And here’s where I can drop you off again if you want.”

“No.”

“No? I got it wrong? How do I get you right, Sarah? Anyway, here’s your big chance. Isn’t this what you asked for? Go ahead, honey. You want to jump? I just want what you want. Go ahead.” His face was a solid mask, though he wept.

“It’s a long way down,” she whispered.

“The longest.”

They both stood looking at the river beneath them. No walkers or strollers or joggers passed behind them, and Benny couldn’t hear sounds of traffic. The entire city had seemingly emptied out, and stillness possessed it, as it would a necropolis. He thought he heard his own watch ticking for two minutes before she said, “No. I can’t. I’d like to, but I can’t.”

“You can’t?” he asked. “Why not?”

For answer, she turned to him, and with one hand at his waist, she raised her other hand to Benny’s face in a slow-motion caress, the most personal gesture she had ever made in his direction. “Because of you,” she said. It had killed her to say it, he knew, but she had said it, and now tears were in her eyes as well. Then she whispered, “I’m a kidder. I joke about things. That’s the one thing I’m serious about, my joking. That’s how I meet the payroll.” She was touching him here and there. “What do we do about the hopes? The loans? The, uh, ambitions? Tell me something. Are you in love with me?”

“Yes,” he said miserably and proudly. “I am. I’ve said so. I’ve told you. Often.”

“Okay. We’ll have to work this out, I guess. But you can’t stop me from what I am. I’m a joker, all right? Give me me.”

“That was a very impressive speech,” he said with pride and tenderness.

“I thought so,” she said, closing her eyes. “It was me at my best.”

“Could I say something else?” he asked. “Because I’ll say it anyway.”

“Permission to speak.”

“The baby won’t be laughable. Infant care ditto. Okay, so: here’s my thinking. One: I still love you. Two: what are we going to do about this baby, assuming you keep it? And three: I’ve forgotten what three is.”

“Oh, my sister called.”

“What?”

“My sister, the second one, the rich wife who lives in Dutchess County? — she called. On the phone. Carrie. She’s named Carrie. That’s her name. That’s how she was baptized. You remember Carrie? Of course you do. She’s one of my two evil sisters, both of whom live in palazzos. She said she’ll take the baby if we want her to.” Sarah paused. “She’d be happy to acquire him, her, it. She’s used to mergers and acquisitions. She and her husband, Lord Randolph, have these amazing pots of money. Their dragon wings are spread out wide over their vast illegal fortune wrested out of the hands of the poor and harmless. Randolph participates in a cartel of international slime. One more baby will hardly make a dent in their studied concentration on cash.”

“You called her? You told her? And she made an offer? No, she won’t do that.”

“You’re right, she won’t,” Sarah said. “And do you know why?”

“Because we’re going to get married?”

“Exactly! Bingo! We’re going to get married. What a nice proposal. Where’s my diamond ring?” Against the odds, she embraced him and held him, and then she turned so that her back was pressed against his chest, and his arms circled her waist.

“Your ring’s around here somewhere. And how will our marriage work out?” he asked.

“Wait and see,” she said. “I repeat: you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

—

Which is how Benny Takemitsu, a third-generation Japanese-American who spoke little or no Japanese, a citizen of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a journeyman architect at the firm of Byrum and Haddam, a man who had such a weakness for women who could make him laugh that he could not help falling in love with such a woman, came to marry someone who had never kissed him but who had, at least, caressed his face. They conceived a child together and still she could not bear to kiss him, not before or after the child was born, a son whom they named Julian. Stranger things have happened, Benny would sometimes say to himself, about his wife’s particular form of chastity.

Sarah had laughed and groaned during the pains of labor to the consternation of the attending nurses, who had never witnessed such laughter before, or so much of it.

The baby’s pediatrician was Dr. Elijah Elliott Jones, who praised the boy’s health and equanimity and handsome features as if Julian were his own son.

—