SNOW has begun to fall, a pretty sight in the warm yellow light that spills from Belinda’s windows. It’s a charming place, two floors of a town house on Marlborough Street, a very desirable location, very pretty in the snow, and it should seem inviting, yet Matthew hesitates before ringing the bell. Why? He finds Belinda’s daughter unsettling. Her name is Leila. She and Belinda say “Lay-la.” He would say “Lie-la,” but he supposes people should be able to decide how they want their own names pronounced.
Leila is fifteen. She’s a girl of heart-stopping sexiness, with brand-new breasts that erupted from her chest as if overnight not long ago. Matthew can’t seem to pin down just when they appeared. He remembers her as a girl without breasts, but he can’t recall any slow blossoming of the disconcertingly assertive, boastful, taunting, teasing things that she’s equipped with now. Whenever he sees her he has to work to keep himself from staring at them. With the addition of breasts, Leila now looks much more like her mother, and Belinda somehow looks much more like her daughter. This makes Matthew feel like a pervert, a highly specialized pervert: a seducer of the mothers of young girls. He suspects that Leila thinks he’s exploiting her mother. She might be right, but she might be completely wrong — her mother might be exploiting him. He has wondered whether Leila regards him as a potential stepfather, and he has often wondered what she says to Belinda about him, constructing imaginary conversations, like this one:
“So, now that you changed your name, what’s next? Are you going to marry Matthew? ‘Belinda Barber,’ won’t that be great.”
“No, I am not going to marry him. Matthew and I just go out together now and then. We’re very happy with that arrangement. We have a good time together, and that is that.”
“Do you fuck?”
He supposes that Leila would ask that, exactly that way. He thinks he can see it in her smile, that sarcastic, wise-child, know-it-all smile.
Leila answers the door; she usually does. Her hair is wet. She’s wearing something that looks like an athletic undershirt her father might have left behind. “Hey,” she says. “How ya doin’?”
“Fine,” says Matthew. Leila’s breasts fill all the space between them. Matthew gives her the half grin he has developed to avoid showing his yellowing teeth. “How about you?”
“Okay. Come on in. Where’re you guys going tonight?”
“I thought we’d go to a new grill not far from my place. It seems interesting.”
“Then back to your place to fuck, right?” She doesn’t say that, of course. “Sounds nice,” is what she actually says, and smiles — sweetly and, Matthew thinks, possibly sarcastically. “Do you want me to make you a drink?” It’s a trick that her father — once a friend of Matthew’s, now gone — taught her. She can mix just about anything, and pretty well, too, though she tends to use too much vermouth.
“Sure, that would be fine.”
From upstairs Belinda calls, “We don’t have time. I’m ready.”
Matthew shrugs.
“Another time,” says Leila. Is there an odd little lilt in her voice, not quite appropriate? Is she flirting with Matthew? Is she mocking him? Belinda comes into the room, dressed like an accountant. Belinda is head of new-product development for Zizyph, a computer software company that had six employees a year ago, has a hundred now, and at this time next year may have six hundred or may be only a fuzzy memory. Belinda is smart and attractive, but she dresses like an accountant. Though they have such similar jobs, she and Matthew never talk about work. Matthew thinks that this is because they are both embarrassed by his working on toys. (Years ago, at a party, Matthew was telling someone what he did, and Liz — they were still married — came up beside him and rumpled his hair. She smiled at the woman he was talking to and said, “Matthew never grew up.” She meant it to be a compliment, that Matthew had kept his childlike innocence and charm, Matthew supposed, but he couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t meant something else. He still wonders just what she did mean.)
Belinda says, “Bye, honey,” to Leila. She gives her a kiss and a pat. “Don’t you stay out too late.”
“You either,” says Leila. She gives Matthew and her mother another smile. Matthew gives her another half grin. As she closes the door behind them, she says, “Have fun, you two.” Again, her tone may not be quite appropriate.
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