“YOU MADE LOVE TO BEANIE JONES!” Mrs. Cone stood. She had the wine bottle in her hand and for a second I thought she was going to hit Jimmy with it. I was surprised she wasn’t upset about Izzy having seen Jimmy on top of Beanie Jones.
Sheba said, “What the fuck, Jimmy?!”
“I’m sorry.” Jimmy shook his head, like even he was sick of himself.
“How could you do that to us?! Beanie Jones??” Mrs. Cone shouted.
Everyone was silent. Dr. Cone stared at Mrs. Cone. Sheba stared at Mrs. Cone too. Jimmy looked nervous, or confused; his eyes roamed from his wife to Mrs. Cone, back and forth.
Mrs. Cone looked like she was trying not to cry. “It’s just, I mean, Beanie Jones?! COME ON! Beanie Jones?!” And then, in a quick semi-collapse, she sat back down. The bottle remained in her hand.
Sheba turned away from Mrs. Cone like she’d had enough of her. “Seriously, Jimmy. Beanie fucking Jones? What the fuck? Every fucking housewife in the neighborhood is going to be lined up at the door to fuck you now.”
In my head I saw all the mothers from Roland Park holding cakes and cookies, lined up at the Cones’ front door, waiting to make love to Jimmy. Would Mrs. Cone get in line too? Seemed like she’d want to be first.
I thought about how my body felt electric when Jimmy locked his eyes onto mine. His furry chest was warm against my cheek when he hugged me. I’d seen his penis and despite my best attempts, I couldn’t get that image out of my head. But when I stopped and asked myself if I wanted to kiss Jimmy, the answer was no. He was handsome, and he had sexiness pulsating out of him like sound waves. But he was . . . well. He was old.
Jimmy was stuttering, blubbering, “。 . . I couldn’t find my way out of it—the words wouldn’t come to me. And once it started, I didn’t know how to stop it.”
Dr. Cone said, “Jimmy, it’s your body. You’re in charge of it. You can choose not to make love to every beautiful woman who offers herself to you.”
“You think Beanie Jones is beautiful?!” Mrs. Cone said. She seemed more upset than Sheba. I had expected Sheba to run into the house and start throwing dishes, Jimmy-style. Her husband had had sex with another woman! But Sheba seemed relatively calm.
“Bonnie, please.” Dr. Cone lifted his hands and dropped them, palms down, as if he were dribbling two basketballs.
“We agreed, no fooling around while you’re getting sober,” Sheba said. I thought about this. Was Jimmy allowed to fool around with other women when he wasn’t getting sober?
“And no fooling around with gossipy social climbers like Beanie Jones!” Mrs. Cone said.
“Bonnie!” Sheba said. “He is my husband. He has an open marriage with me, not you! I agree with you about Beanie Fuckface Jones, but I don’t understand what your fucking stake is in this. Are you two making love? Have you been sleeping with my husband?”
The words open marriage echoed in my head. What exactly did that mean? Did Sheba have sex with other people? Did they discuss it beforehand? Did they report to each other what had happened afterward? I could barely admit my sex addiction in group therapy and Sheba had just blurted out “open marriage” as if it were no big deal!
“Of course Bonnie and I aren’t making love! That’s fucking absurd!” Jimmy said, and Mrs. Cone’s eyes flashed like she’d been slapped.
“Bonnie?” Dr. Cone looked at his wife. “What is your stake in this?”
Mrs. Cone dropped her head for a second, like she needed to gather air or courage or maybe just the strength to lift her head. When she finally did, she said, “It’s just, God, I don’t know. Jimmy and Sheba are ours, they belong to us! And . . . and . . . I don’t know, I sort of feel like Jimmy betrayed us, too.”
“You need to detach,” Dr. Cone said. “It’s not your marriage.”
“And you need to not fuck Beanie Fuckface Jones,” Sheba said to Jimmy.
“I don’t want to be with anyone but you, baby.” Jimmy stared at Sheba. “I don’t even want to have an open marriage. I only agreed because you wanted it.” The idea that Sheba had pushed for the open marriage more than Jimmy knocked around in my brain. I’d always thought men wanted sex more than women. But maybe that was as wrong as the ideas that Jewish people were untrustworthy or Black people should “know their place.”
“Oh, baby, I love you so much!” Sheba was tearing up. And then she and Jimmy leaned in toward each other and started kissing. With tongues. Dr. Cone, Mrs. Cone, and I all watched.