Fifteen years ago Tony and Minnie had moved in together. It was the anniversary, but Tony forgot. In years past she had never forgotten, but today was different.
Tony yanked at Mrs. Rivera’s strap, trying to get the buckle to work, and Mrs. Rivera mewed. It was a grunt but from up high in the mouth, and it tapered off instead of cutting short. Then she coughed, in a way, her throat jumping open wide, because this time Tony was pulling at the straps, deliberately hauling them up and back. The cups ground against the woman’s breasts and she coughed again, or belched, and then she fell halfway into a growl, and then she was shouting because Tony’s hand was up her dress.
They were used to seeing each other at the dentist’s. Mrs. Rivera was in her 40s and much shorter than Tony, who admired the way she wore her designer dresses. Tony would have on her usual slacks and a black denim jacket, which Minnie always said gave her an air of Slim Keith. Mrs. Rivera had a rock garden in Northridge. She hinted at her husband’s income and said he owned “an enterprise, fixtures,” which Tony found sweet in a way. Tony described the height of her new roses, and Mrs. Rivera’s red mouth opened in a little circle as she laughed. She was looking at the ceiling, eyes half shut, because she threw herself into these things, and her shoulders rose once and fell, and the front of her peach blouse rose and fell too, heavily.
When the hygienist called Mrs. Rivera to the chair, she helped herself up with a hand on Tony’s knee. Tony breathed a vanilla scent that rose from the back of Mrs. Rivera’s neck, which was smooth and brilliant and a couple shades lighter than a flower pot. Tony seized Mrs. Rivera’s fingers and squeezed them. “Oh, it’s not going to be that bad,” Mrs. Rivera said, meaning the session with the dentist. But she squeezed back.
They wound up in Mrs. Rivera’s sun room three weeks later. Tony had said she wanted to see Mrs. Rivera’s coneflowers, and Mrs. Rivera had said she also had to see the peonies. In the middle of the day, the neighborhood was so quiet that the sunlight seemed heavy. It dropped down on them, and the top of the neighbors’ pine trees creaked. Three skinny flecks of silver and two fat ones appeared along Mrs. Rivera’s terra cotta jawline as she stooped to point at a fat peony. After counting them, Tony kissed them away, or licked them up. Anyway they were gone, and Mrs. Rivera said absolutely nothing but looked at her sideways and then turned her great dark eyes back to the peony. The trees creaked and then Mrs. Rivera said, “I didn’t show you the print in the sunroom.” She’d mentioned a throw she had bought at Bullocks Wilshire.
In the sunroom, the throw from Bullocks Wilshire proved brighter than Tony favored and rather like the Italian cushions Minnie had insisted on for several years. Tony abandoned thinking of anything to say. There followed the business with the bra straps and the rest.
“He’s coming back,” Mrs. Rivera said, a good deal later. “It’s almost five.” Tony, who was dreaming with her eyes open, moved one knee and then the other. The white face of the kitchen’s dishwasher looked back at her, and her hand was well inside Mrs. Rivera.
Tony had driven halfway back home to Sherman Oaks when she thought of Minnie and whether tonight she was making steak sandwiches and cheddar soup, which Tony always liked. Then she remembered the anniversary. “I’m not going to tell her,” Tony said aloud, meaning about Mrs. Rivera. Her hand tensed on the steering wheel. “I won’t,” Tony said.
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