He hugs her. “Thank you for being open with me about your past. It all makes so much sense now.”

Georgia never fails, Lily marvels to herself.

OVER THE HOLIDAYS, I spend a few days with my mom in her house in Connecticut, just the two of us. We have a nice time. She hasn’t mentioned my fake fat since I went to the Excess Weight Disorders Support Group, that one time. I can tell it takes some effort on her part, but I appreciate it. Instead, we talk a lot about her upcoming trip to Australia in March, which is a topic I much prefer.

I devote a large portion of each day to working on some designs for the dream sequence of a new movie. And I dedicate the rest of the time to fantasizing about Peter. I’m feeling optimistic. He said he would not neglect his sense of touch at our next meeting. Who would say that if they weren’t interested? Only a sadist. I think he’s interested.

In the end, my mom can’t help herself. Right before I’m about to go back to the city, as we’re standing at the living room window staring out in silence at the countryside, she says, “Barb, you’ll never find a worthwhile guy if you keep wearing that disguise.”

I’m sure my mom would find Peter Marrick worthwhile. In the window, my own reflection is staring back at me with a tiny, hopeful smile.

Chapter Fifteen

Strad tells Lily it’s been three years since he’s been with a woman who made him want to take a vacation with her. He suggests they go on a trip for two weeks to the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Then he says, “Why not leave tomorrow?”

Excited by his spontaneity and enthusiasm for her, Lily agrees to go on vacation with him the next day. Worried that the airline might not let her wear a mask, she insists they take separate flights. She says she always travels alone.

MY FRIENDS SANS Lily come over for a Night of Creation. I’ve been daydreaming about Peter a lot since he gave me that frustratingly incomplete demonstration a few days ago, so it stirs me even more than usual when he walks through the door and kisses me on the cheek.

While we work, the room is quiet without Lily here playing her piano. Half an hour into our session, I go to the kitchen to get some juice. Peter joins me.

Softly, so the others can’t hear, he says, “Can I see you tomorrow evening?”

I don’t answer right away, wondering how I’ll survive twenty-four hours until then.

“Please say you can see me tomorrow,” he whispers, leaning against the island, his back to our friends. His smile is so seductive I nearly drop the knife I picked up to cut a lemon. He adds, “We need to finish that demonstration I started. One of the five senses was missing, remember?”

“Yes, I remember.” I clear my throat. “Okay, tomorrow.”

“Thank God,” he says. “Otherwise we’d have to wait a week because I’m leaving after tomorrow to visit my dad in California for five days.”

“Oh.”

“And that would be too long to wait, don’t you think?”

That he’s showing this much interest in me moves me deeply. My gray curls shield my face as I lean over my lemon and answer “Yes,” casually.

“We can hear you!” Georgia hollers, and then mutters to herself, “Where is Lily when we need her to mask the noises of love?”

She resumes her typing, but louder.

I LOOK FORWARD to Peter’s visit with utmost anticipation. But he calls me in the morning to let me know that sadly he will not be able to come over tonight because of unforeseen work obligations. He says he’s very disappointed and can’t wait to see me when he returns from his trip, in six days.

After we hang up, I wander from room to room, stunned, like a human being dying of thirst having just been told the water will not arrive today as promised, but possibly after I’m already dead.

I get back to my work in a daze. It takes me a while to regain my focus.

AS LILY REPORTS to me later, the first few days in Vieques are heavenly for her and Strad. She wears her mask by the hotel pool and on the beach. She even swims with it a few times, trying not to wet it too much.

People stare, of course. But Strad and Lily don’t care. In their rooms, she doesn’t wear the mask, only the music.

Strad feels protective of her. He’s attentive to her psychological and emotional needs. The more she gets to know him, the more she loves him.

BACK IN NEW York, I’ve been having an intense e-mail correspondence with Peter while he’s away visiting his dad. Our exchanges are flirtatious and titillating. I can hardly sleep. I spend most of my days smiling or snickering to myself while working, reminiscing about the last message sent or received.

I can’t wait for him to get back, can’t wait for him to indulge his sense of touch. I wonder what first move he has planned, how he will touch me, how he will kiss me, how he will undress me, how surprised he’ll be to encounter my fake fat under my clothes, how astonished—though not overly ecstatic, otherwise that would make him shallow—he’ll be to discover I’m attractive by every conventional standard, not only by his open-minded, evolved, and big-hearted one. For the first time, I will take off my disguise out of love, not out of hate, like I do in bars. And then I can keep it off, because I will no longer be searching for my soul mate. I will have found him.

My friends have remarked that since I’ve met Peter, I’ve stopped going to bars and doing my stripping ritual. It’s true, I’ve lost the urge to rub shallow men’s faces in their own superficiality.

PETER RETURNS FROM his trip, and our long-awaited reunion is that same evening, during which he will complete his demonstration by delighting his sense of touch. I’m very excited, imagining his caresses.

When he walks through my door, right on time, he gives me a big hug and smiles at me, saying, “I missed you.” He’s lightly stroking my gray curls with the tips of his fingers. I’m glad my wig is made of real hair.

We position ourselves just like we did at his apartment, with me on the couch and him on a chair facing me, close.

He opens his bag and pulls out a piece of fabric. He begins stroking the fabric—red velvet—while staring at me.

Needless to say, this is not the kind of touching I expected.

After what feels like ten minutes (but maybe it was just one), I say, “Is it still good?”

“Remarkably.”

“You’d think the pleasure of touching that thing would wear off after a few minutes.”

“Hasn’t yet. It’s really very soft.”

I nod. Maybe if I act ever so slightly bored, that will nudge him in the right direction. So I lean my head back and gaze past him, as though momentarily lost in thought.

After another minute, he says, “Well, that was great.” He puts his piece of velvet back in his bag.

I smile and nod again. And wait. He does nothing.

“So, is the demonstration complete?” I ask.

“I think so. At least for now. I mean, one can always do better, I suppose. There are always more pleasures one can come up with.”

I wait a moment, hopeful, but he still does nothing.

I laugh, worn out. I could try to nudge him a little more, but I’m tired of it, so instead, I say, “You know, you’re a bit strange.”

“I know,” he blurts. “The reason is . . . there’s something I need to tell you. But I don’t want to, because it’s something about me I’m not sure you’d like.”

Everyone has secrets these days—I think of KAY’s secret identity, whoever KAY is, of mine, of Lily’s.

“Really? You’d be surprised, I’m very open-minded,” I say.

“Maybe not as much as you think.”