God Hates Us All

Privately I’ve always considered myself to have some talent for measuring a woman’s mood. But the expression on Liz’s face is forcing me to reconsider. Not blank, but the opposite. Regret coexisting with pride, with hints of resentment, joy, frustration, shame, resignation, and curiosity. When it comes to emotions, women know how to paint with the full set of oils, while men are busy doodling with crayons.

Liz mumbles a few words of apology and exits in the direction of the intensifying wail. I sit on the couch and look at my raging hard-on, feeling ridiculous. So I slip on my under-wear, grab my pants, and beat a path for the door.

The wailing disappears — I can hear Liz whispering some-thing soft and reassuring. Just ditching her is starting to feel like the wrong play. I look around for a telephone: I can write down her number and call her later to apologize.

“Classy,” I hear Nate saying in my head.

I tiptoe into the bedroom. Having ditched the sweater, Liz sways bare in front of a vanity mirror.

She’s nursing a baby, sex indeterminate at this distance. The scene in the mirror confirms I’d been right about the attention-demanding breasts. But I’d missed altogether on their target audience.

Maybe I hadn’t been totally full of shit during my last conversation with Tana. Maybe it’s not about scoring, but about giving.

Liz looks up at the mirror, catching me grinning like Buddha. I recognize her current expression: puzzlement. I wonder if she’s awed by what I imagine to be beams of pure enlightenment shooting out of my eyes, until I realize her focus is stuck on my lower chakras. I glance down at the source of the commotion. Not Buddha, but a boner, back at full mast. By the time I look up at her again, she doesn’t look so puzzled anymore. Something else entirely has moved in.

Still cradling the baby, she sits down at the edge of the bed and falls slowly sideways, until mother and child are horizontal. I sit beside her, resting my hand on her arm. She scissors her legs, an invitation to complete the circuit. Give to receive, I think as I enter her. Give to receive. I thank the universe for serving up such an excellent part for me to play.

Then I get to work. There is some serious providing to be done.

10

I WAKE UP, HARDLY AN EASY FEAT given the cocoon of silky cotton sheets and a mattress forged from some fluffy polymer of the future. Louvered blinds temper the morning sun. Rich people sleep better, which might be one of the reasons why they’re rich.

Liz sits on the edge of the bed, Indian style, staring at me.

“You’re awake,” she says. “So glad.”

“Me too.” I sit up, keeping the sheets over my lap. Partly I don’t want to offend with my nakedness, as she’s already fully dressed: jeans and a pink Oxford button-down. Mostly I’m just resistant to having to give up the luxury of the sheets. “Last night was great.”

“Great?” she asks. Her tone is scolding. Last night’s sex kitten in tights has clearly departed, replaced by a dour devotee of the L.L. Bean catalog. “That’s what you think? Great?”

“Really great?”

“Really great? Really great. Good God, I’ve just hit rock bottom.”

“I’m a little confused. Did I suck in bed?”

“No, you were fine,” she says. “Better than fine. I had fun, I did. But I need someone to explain to me how I go from a date with a doctor, a very successful single doctor, a grown-up, for once in my life, who knew about Lucy and still wanted to …

Who still seemed interested in me as something more than … How do I go from That Guy to sex with my teenage drug dealer?”

“I’m no psychologist, but you were high. We were high. Speaking of which … I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of the wake-and-bake.”

“I was high,” Liz says.

“I don’t know why, but saying it just makes you feel better, doesn’t it?”

“High while I was nursing my daughter. While my teenage drug dealer fucked me from behind. I mean … what kind of parent does that makes me?”

Liz picks up the telephone and thrusts it toward me.

“Will you call Child Services? Because if you don’t, I will. Lucy would be better off in a foster home.”

“All right, sister. Let’s take a deep breath. First of all, I’m not a teenager. I’m twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one. Imagine that.”

“Almost twenty-one-and-a-half. And while I agree, the sex plus the nursing might have been a little on the freaky side, it doesn’t make you a bad parent. Trust me on this one. I know the bad parent, and lady, you’re not him. We had fun last night.

Everybody deserves to have—”

“You’re sweet,” Liz cuts me off. “Thank you so much. You’ve really helped me to see how completely fucked up and out of control my life has become. Now if you could just get dressed and get out of here, I don’t need Clarinda judging me too.”

She exits the room.

I gather my clothes and dress quickly, passing a husky nurse — this must be Clarinda — on the way out the door. She grins at me, a gap-toothed smile that knows all about what goes on in the night.

“Lady’s gonna be in a good mood this morning,” she says.