Page 8 of Dirty Diana
I wonder if I should play her one of the tapes. Or just mail one to her out of the blue for fun.
“How about you, Diana?” L’Wren asks.
“What’s that?”
“How often do you and Oliver have sex?” L’Wren says this so flatly she might be asking me how often I floss. “My mother called to tell me all about an interview she read with Madonna, who says the key to a healthy marriage is sex three times a week.”
“With your husband?” I ask.
“Diana!” Jenna giggles from the back seat.
“No—” I can feel myself blush. “I just meant, is Madonna even married?”
“Every magazine in my mother’s house is aGood Housekeepingfrom like twenty years ago. But you get the point,” L’Wren says. “How often?”
“Mmm.” I narrow my eyes, as though I were working it out. A prickly hot sensation spreads down my neck at the memory of the lasttime Oliver and I had sex. A date night. It was an unseasonably warm evening, so we sat outside at Delmonico’s and then quickly regretted trying to eat pasta in the heat. We pushed around the food on our plates, drank too much white wine, then fumbled with our cash when it came time to pay the babysitter. Upstairs in our bedroom, we peeled off our clothes and had quick, sweaty sex. Oliver felt good inside me, he always did, but still I felt a need to speed things along. “I want you to come,” I whispered in his ear. “Now?” he asked. “Like this?” “Yes, just like this.”
“Jenna…” L’Wren taps my thigh to be sure I catch this. “Tell Diana how often you and Charlie do it.”
Jenna counts off the days on one hand, flashing her lavender-tipped French manicure. “Four times a week, unless one of us or the kids is sick. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is sex, and Sunday is a hand job because I’m totally spent.”
“Wow,” I say. “Four times.”
“You know blue balls isn’t a real thing, right, Jenna? No man in his fifties needs to climax that much!” L’Wren says.
“Well, Charlie isforty.Plus, it’s like exercise,” Jenna says. “You don’t always want to do it, but then you do it, and you’re glad you did. And Charlie is so much easier to be around afterward. It’s like wearing out a puppy.”
“Ha.” L’Wren laughs. “True.”
“Should we stop and pee before Roundtop?” I ask her.
L’Wren looks at me, then presses her turn indicator. “Jenna, feel free to take Mondays off from now on—you’re making the rest of us look bad! Kev and I are every other Friday.”
“We’re about the same,” I lie.
“But you and Oliver don’t have to schedule it in. You’re an artist, it just happens…”
“Spontaneous sex,” Jenna shakes her head. “Can y’all imagine?” Hard to tell if the idea excites her or horrifies her.
“It’s what you do, right?” L’Wren crosses two lanes for the off-ramp. “What happens if you stop having sex with your husband?Somebody elsestarts having sex with your husband.”
“Mm-hmm,” Jenna nods her head solemnly. “Like Raleigh. So sad.”
Again, the car goes quiet at the mention of Raleigh’s name and I’m not sure what I’m missing. “I thought Raleigh cheated on her husband, not the other way around?” I say. Why do I want to score a point for Raleigh? I hardly know her, beyond seeing her at school dropoff and birthday parties or making small talk on the sidelines at our kids’ soccer games.
All I can think is no one talks about how mysterious marriage is. The three of us in this car have bonded over every intimate detail of pregnancy and motherhood. “I know you’re not supposed to look at your vagina right away,” Jenna confessed about giving birth, “but I couldn’t resist. I took a mirror into the hospital bathroom and almostpassed out.It wasn’t even the right color, y’all.” But I have no real idea of what it’s like inside either of their marriages. How do they fight? What’s Jenna like when she’s really angry? Now I know exactly how often she has sex, but what could I learn that’s not jotted into her iCal? Does she enjoy sex with Charlie? Does she orgasm?
I know how important sex is to a marriage—there is no shortage of essays about this topic—but it’s like, the more important I’m reminded it is, the less enjoyable it becomes. And these days, when I think about sex with Oliver, I get a fluttering, panicky feeling, like I’m inviting trouble. Like I’m knocking on the door of a haunted house and waking up the ghosts inside. Oliver and I have never talked about having a sex life. We just had it—haveit. And maybe Oliver likes sex more. And wants it more. So I try to not overthink it. And then I overthink thinking about it until it becomes like a living thing that I alone am draining the blood out of.
“I heard she didn’t cheat just once,” Jenna says, still talking aboutRaleigh. “I don’t know if it’s true—so don’t say I said it—but apparently it was ongoing, like five different men.”
L’Wren lets out a low whistle. “Sweet Jesus, I can barely get on my Peloton and she has five different affairs?”
“And Dustin’s getting the kids in the divorce,” Jenna warns. “Sole custody. And the house.”
—
The antiques show grounds are muddy from days of rain. There are swampy puddles to pick our way around, and half the SUVs in the parking lot seem to be using their four-wheel drive for the first time. There’s usually a sort of uniform among the shoppers—this year’s most stylish, including L’Wren, are wearing knee-high boots with a rugged sole and an oversize buckle. The rest of the uniform is mostly unchanged—sundresses and denim jackets and cowboy hats. Oversize sunglasses. Heart-shaped charms on gold necklaces. I pull my own denim jacket closed against the late-morning breeze.
