Stories — William Halligan

My Baby is (almost) a Centerfold—part two

I was middle-aged, divorced and dating a girl who was about to become a Playboy model

One bright May Saturday afternoon, a little after 5:00, she knocked on my Stokes Avenue apartment door and I opened it. The smile, always the smile. And tight jeans and a simple white thin top, the obvious lack of a bra, and a small overnight bag, royal blue. She came into my arms and kissed me.

“You look marvelous,” I said. Sure. She always looked marvelous.

My plan: dinner. Two chicken breasts, a bit of garlic, peppers, mushrooms. Twenty minutes max while she sips her cocktail. Can’t miss.

Some peach schnapps, vodka, cranberry juice and orange juice mixed and in a large enough decanter was already in the fridge.

Chicken breasts, already pre-seared, were on a plate waiting.

I took her hand and showed her around, which didn’t take long. Two bedrooms, minimalist style, two bathrooms, one of which was rarely used, living room, TV with VCR player, turn table with the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack loaded and a garage sale amplifier and bargain speakers, dining room, small kitchen. Divorced dad bachelor pad.

She was my second female guest.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Sure.”

I poured her a glass and she took a sip. “Oh, Sex on the beach. I love it.”

And I had thought the drink—as well as its name—would be a surprise. I forgot. The girl gets around. At least she liked it. I poured myself one too and went to the kitchen to finish dinner.

“Your place is okay,” she said. “It’s nice.”

“Sure,” she was trying to be gracious. You’d be surprised, I thought, how happy I am to have even this.

I put the tone arm down on the record and went to the kitchen to cook the veggies. “I had the time of my life,” came through the speakers.

“I love this,” she said and started swaying. Lord, the girl could dance. “Come on. Dance with me.”

“I’m not much of a dancer.” But I tried. I could feel my own stiffness as I watched pure rhythm and suppleness.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Just get a little tempo in those hips. I know you’ve got some tempo in those hips; just show it.”

I tried.

“Just pretend you’re Elvis. That’s it. Keep it moving with me.”

I popped into the kitchen to stir the veggies then threw the already done chicken into the mix. I kept up some kind of tempo. But not like hers.

“Have you seen this movie, ‘Dirty Dancing’?”

“No.”

“I have, and it’s great. This song plays at the end. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey do this bit where she runs into his arms and he lifts her overhead, her arms stretched out like a swan. They practiced it earlier in the movie and couldn’t pull it off, so it’s a cool surprise at the end. So graceful. You should watch it sometime, and then we could practice that move together.”

I could almost imagine it. I wasn’t anxious to try.

The song ended. The next one started and we sat down for dinner.

She seemed to like it. That’s good because except for spaghetti and meat sauce it was the only recipe I knew.

“How long have you had this place?”

“A couple of years.”

“Entertained lots of lady friends?”

“Oh, scores of them.”

She laughed. “Do you like being a dentist?”

“Most of the time. Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass. You like being a medical assistant?”

“Ha. Okay. You got me there.” She grimaced. Then she showed me her empty glass. “One more of these, please.”

I refilled both our glasses.

She helped put the dishes in the sink.

Afterward I held up the cover of the rented movie, “Risky Business,” with Tom Cruise.

“I like that one,” she said. “I seem to remember a train scene.”

“Do you? Yeah. Me too.”

“Can we watch it on the floor?”

I hadn’t considered that. I pictured us cuddled on the couch. “Sure.” I said and tossed down two cushions from the couch and grabbed pillows from the bedroom. I hit play. I lay on my back with my head on a cushion and she lay on her side with her head on my stomach. Tom Cruise danced solo in the living room to Bob Seager’s “Old Time Rock and Roll.”

“See,” she said. “That’s the way you do it.”

“I’ll try it. In my socks on the kitchen floor.”

She came up to me, up to my face and kissed me, her mouth wet and watery as a warm summer rain, and her fingertips danced across my chest and belly like those raindrops tapping on a tin roof and then hugged me close and kept kissing.

Goodness, this could become addictive—in the best way. Like good whiskey, I thought. Like my dad’s bottle of Crown Royal that I liked too much and pissed him off when I drank eight shots one night when he wasn’t looking but then knew when he saw how far down the good stuff in the bottle had gone.

“Hey, slow down on the good stuff,” he had said.

And in the morning, I paid the price. But that’s not now, I thought. She’s so much like good whiskey, but in the morning, there will be no hangover. Only goodness. I thought of beer in my college days. Why are you thinking of that now? I wasn’t sure but even bad beer got to be an addiction too but only for a while. Too many mornings that didn’t lead to happy morning classes.

She moved back down to lying on her side with her head on my stomach and fingers moved and her mouth watery and I was so glad this girl was sensuous and lovely and moving and the movie played.

“Oh, the staircase scene. That’s so hot,” she said and came up to me once more with kisses and touch and I touched her. We were both fully clothed but a few buttons were undone and one zipper and she seemed to blend into me, our bodies so entwined and I was beyond grateful, beyond where I’d ever been with any woman and fully with her and she with me, fully conscious, I thought, yet somehow beyond thought, and perhaps getting too carried away with her or only just right and I tried to silence my own crazy head. Never in my not-so-young life had being with a woman ever been like this.

“And now the train scene,” she said later. “Phil Collins’ song. I never hear it without thinking of this. So cool.” She held me tight. Moved, rhythm against me, warm close and skin and closeness and seemed to penetrate right through me.

So much later, after Guido and killer pimp and other related stories, the Princeton admissions guy comes to interview the young candidate Tom Cruise right when his risky business is going on and, well, Tom Cruise thinks all is lost. The admissions guy’s name? Bill Rutherford. I nearly crack up.

“What?” Sherry asks.”

“Bill Rutherford. Oh, God, that is funny. Back in ’68, I applied to a few dental schools, and they were tough to get into. Maybe they still are. Less than ten percent of applicants got accepted. Anyway, I got a letter from USC asking me to come up for an interview. I drove up from San Diego to the campus. And I met the guy. A one-man admissions officer. Make or break. One guy who held the future. He was tall, good looking, maybe fifty. He wore tan slacks and a nice dark sports coat. And his name was Bill Rutherford. God, that’s funny. The interview was friendly. I think I’d already passed the academic hurdles. Maybe he just called people in for interviews to see if they were decent folks. He showed me around. Showed me a downstairs clinic with old upright chairs that he said would be replaced sometime in the seventies. He told me I’d someday do my first root canals in that room.

“USC has a damn committee now. Applicants are interviewed by a panel. It must seem like a TV show or something. But back in the day, it was one guy and it’s the same guy who interviewed Tom Cruise. Okay, not the same guy. Same name. Funny as hell.”

After the movie’s happy ending, I rewound the tape and we went to bed but stayed awake for some time.

In the morning, we cuddled close and lovely for a time and then I went to the kitchen and mixed up a batter and made waffles. I had strawberries and whipped cream on the table. She came to breakfast. “I want to tell you something,” I said to her.

“Uh huh,” she said, bright eyes on mine, mouthful of sweet waffle, berries, whipped cream.

“I just want you to know how special this all is. I’ve never felt so loved.”

She stopped chewing. “Really?”

“Really. Your kisses are so full of love. And your embrace, you hold me so close: such affection. You touch me like you mean it. You kiss me like you really mean it.”

“Yes. But that’s just the way I kiss.”

“You mean you kiss every guy that way?” I could not believe what I was hearing.

“I guess so. It’s just the way I kiss.”

“But your love comes through so real. I was thinking after I’m back on my feet again, you know, have the down payment for a house, maybe in Almaden Valley, we could move in together, maybe even get married.”

“Get married? I haven’t wanted to marry any of the guys I’ve dated. I think I’ve told you that. I don’t think I’ll start now.”

But she doesn’t mean any of that, I thought. Maybe she doesn’t know her own mind. I know what I feel. I know it’s real.

She changed the subject. “Hey, remember the guy who said he was a Playboy photographer? I got in touch with him yesterday. We’ve got a shoot scheduled for next week. I’ll have to arrange a day off. It’s up in the Oakland Hills, a nice house with a big pool. He says it makes a great backdrop.”

So, this was actually happening. “Wow. Do you want me to go with you? I mean, are you okay going alone? You trust him.”

“Of course I do. It’s fine. Look. I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”

I suppose that was true. She’d handled herself just fine so far. Everything was working out for her this time around.

Baby is (almost) a Centerfold—part two