Finally, I said, “A word has come up recently. It came up last night at the restaurant. It’s giving me fits, thinking about it. Even trying to think about how to think about it is giving me fits.”
Jeri smiled. “Sounds like you. What word is that?”
“Gifting.”
She stared out the window. We were a mile from Fernley’s main street. Nothing was moving. After a while she said, “It’s kind of a big word, Mort. I believe Ma came up with it, at least in the context currently afoot.”
“I thought . . . as long as we’re sitting here on an empty road, an intellectual conversation might keep us from drifting off into irreversible comas.”
“Intellectual, huh?”
“Don’t know what else to call it, even if it’s not.”
She blew out a breath. “Two weeks ago, nothing like that was in my head. Gifting, I mean.” She didn’t say anything for another minute. Then, “I really like her, Mort.”
“I know. I do, too.”
“She’s . . . different, but so am I. She’d like to have something the world isn’t prepared to give her.”
“Know that, too.”
“It’s about experiencing sexual feelings, not actual sex.”
“Yup.”
“When that gets bottled up, it can hurt. A lot.”
“Yup again.”
“But . . . it’s not up to you to fix it. It’s not your problem.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But, you could, on occasion. Almost like you were watching television.”
“Television, huh?”
“I guess it would be pretty live TV, but yes.”
“Live, all right. Thing is, that feels complicated.”
She closed her eyes and scratched her forehead with a finger. “It could be, yes, if we let it. I think it puts you on the spot. I think you’re feeling damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“Nailed it.”
“So you’re between a proverbial rock and a hard place, except that depends on how all of us think about it. I mean, how each of us views the situation.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So . . . what if it’s all right with me?”
“That’s pretty much where I get stuck. Still.”
“Because you think I’d be jealous. That if I agree to it, it would only be because I’m being nice. That in truth I’d hate it.”
“Nailed it again.”
She turned to me. “Jealousy is a kind of sickness, Mort. It declares ownership. It turns people into property. It denies their right to be who they are. I’m not that way. I don’t have the jealousy gene. The tighter you hold on to someone, the less of them you get. If you’re happy, I’m happy, and if you and I are happy together, then what’s the problem? Anyway, this thing with Sarah isn’t just my decision. I mean, if we’re talking about decisions it would be up to you, too. You’d have to want to do it. Which brings up another big problem. For you, I think.”
“What’s that?”
“How do you say yes, you’d like to give her what she wants if you think I’d hate it? How do we even have that conversation?”
I sighed. Couldn’t do anything else.
“So it’s up to me,” Jeri said. “I’m the one who has to make it okay, and it’s like I don’t have the words to do that.” She hesitated. “Except . . . I want to try something, and I need for you to trust me. I mean, trust me completely. I’m going to ask you one question, just one, and I want a completely honest answer and I don’t want you to try to figure out what I want that answer to be. Will you trust me? Please?”
“Okay, yes. Ask away.”
“Seeing Sarah—Holiday—not fully dressed. Would you like to keep doing that for a while?”
“Yes.”
She sagged, and I knew I’d blown it. Her shoulders slumped. She took a deep breath. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “We got through it. No one died.” She pulled my head down and gave me a kiss. It lasted awhile and got sloppy. When we came up for air, she said, “Then do it. It doesn’t hurt us. It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I’m not a jealous person, and that’s me being honest, too.”
I shivered.
Jeri held one of my hands in both of hers. “I don’t know why I like her so much. I just do. I’ve had, quote-unquote, best friends before, but nothing like her and not for a long time. It’s like I can tell Sarah anything. Maybe it’s because I was a lot like her for so long. Seven years, after Beau. That was a dark place. You got me out of it. Now Sarah’s in a place that feels pretty much the same—and, if you’re willing, maybe you can help her to get out of it, too.”
“I’m not sure about that. I don’t think she’s trying to leave that place. She’s trying to . . . to stay there, enjoy being there.”
“People change.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And even if she didn’t, she would still enjoy it and you’d have fun.”
“Yep. Can’t deny it. You got me there.”
“I don’t ‘have’ you, Mort. I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I’m just saying—she would like it and you would like it and that’s all right. I mean, if you didn’t like it, that would be pretty weird.”
“Well, no one’s ever accused me of being weird before. I am the freakin’ epitome of normal. I am on the highest tiptop part of a bell-shaped curve of pristine twenty-four-carat male normalcy.”
She laughed, a nice musical sound in the car. “There. That’s the Mort I know and love. Sarah likes to show herself, that’s all. It makes her feel alive. She can’t really do it in a bar, but she can with you. Then I get to fix you, which I have to say is a blast.”
“Ah, an ulterior motive eases out of the fog. The world begins to make sense.”
“Well, good. You figured it out.”
I took a deep breath. “You really want this, Jeri?”
“For Sarah, yes. For you, too.”
“Okay, then. I’m not going to hold you to it. If things change and you want it to stop, tell me. Just because that train is rolling doesn’t mean it can’t be brought to a halt.”
“Got it. Thank you.” She smiled. “So . . . when?”
“When what?”
“When do you want to . . . fire her up again?
