“How does this gentleman make you feel?”
Sarai smiled thinking about Reed. “He gets me. He listens to me. He’s so easy to talk to.”
“There it is.” Dr. Patel put his index finger under her chin and lifted. “You glow just talking about him. The way you feel inside lights you up outside.”
Sarai did feel warm inside when she talked about Reed. She just wished that warmth inside her would burn some extra calories.
“I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” said Dr. Patel. “I wanted to set you up with a young man who I thought would be perfect for you.”
Sarai cringed. Soon after she’d completed her treatment for her eating disorder with Dr. Patel, he’d begun talking about how she now needed to heal her heart. He’d wanted her to come to his church to meet people then. Sarai had demurred then, still getting used to the new her.
“It looks like I’m too late though,” said Dr. Patel. But he didn’t sound the least bit put out. He smiled when he admitted his defeat. “I can’t wait to meet this young man who’s stolen your heart.”
Chapter Nine
After a year of ranch-style living, a three-story walk-up seemed like a hassle to Reed. Standing in the one-bedroom apartment, he crossed the linoleum floor to the barred window.
Outside, the view was nothing but concrete. There were no rolling pastures like on the ranch. No sounds of animals roaming about or calling to each other. Instead, the honks of horns and walla walla of the inner city yelled at him.
Instead of looking out to see Xavier and Sean shooting hoops, Reed saw skinny, young boys with pants hanging low on their hips and angry tattoos on their bare, bird-like chests.
He didn’t catch Dylan and Maggie sneaking a kiss behind the barn, or Fran and Eva holding hands as they walked down the lane. Nope. Instead, he saw young girls in too much makeup and too tight jeans talking to grown men twice their age.
Instead of a pack of tame disabled dogs rambling about at the feet of a group of humans who cared for them, Reed looked down to witness young boys holding dogs on short leashes as the canines gnashed their teeth and snarled at one another. Life off the ranch was truly a different world.
“Now we do have wheelchair access. But it’s around the back.”
Reed turned from the window to face the landlord of the complex. The man was short with a beer belly and ketchup stains on the collar of his shirt.
“There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” said Reed.
The landlord glanced at Reed’s pants-covered legs. A second too late, the man jerked his gaze back up, skirting over Reed’s prosthetic. “Well, of course not. I wasn’t implying that there was. I just want you to know that we are up to code with the Fair Housing Act and all that mumbo jumbo.”
The Fair Housing Act was not mumbo jumbo. It was the law. A law that the federal government deemed necessary to put in place to protect the rights of people of different races, color, religion, national origin, gender, familial status, and ability.
Reed had been around the back of the complex to use that particular entrance, not because he needed it. He’d seen an elderly woman with two bags of groceries. He’d offered his help, but when she’d caught sight of Reed’s arm, she’d hesitated. Reed, in his typical fashion when someone was uncomfortable with his wound, made a joke.
“Don’t worry, I can handle the bags. I’m all right.” He waved his fully intact right arm.
The old lady didn’t get it. But she did offer him her bags.
As they made their way up the concrete ramp of the handicap entrance, Reed noted all the cracks in the walkway. Someone in a wheelchair would have great difficulty navigating this place. Someone who needed a cane to get around, someone who had to watch their step to avoid a fall, would face the same challenges.
The law wasn’t just for those missing limbs or who had challenges with mobility. Clearly, the landlord had done the bare minimum and called it a day. Whether he put down a deposit on the apartment or not, Reed would definitely be filing a complaint in the morning.
“You’ll be happy to know there’s a bus on the corner, son. In case you were worried about getting around.”
Just as much as Reed hated being underestimated, he hated being called son by anyone he wasn’t related to. He’d endured it with a few drill sergeants and other superiors in the service. He’d never balk against the chain of command. But it still got under his skin.
“I can drive,” he said to the landlord as he made his way towards the bedroom.
“Really? Is that safe?”
Reed didn’t answer. He looked into the bedroom.
“Now, son, any other modifications you have to make, like something to hold you up while you take a shower, you’ll be responsible for putting in and taking down when you leave.”
“I don’t need to make any other accommodations. It’s just my arm.”
Reed held up his fully functioning right arm. That confused the landlord, who again looked at his prosthetic. Then immediately jerked his gaze away.
Reed didn’t expect the man to get the joke. He didn’t expect that anyone in this neighborhood would understand him. They’d likely ask a lot of questions or stare and point. He’d stick out like a sore thumb because he only had one.
Still, Reed sighed and took the application the landlord offered. He didn’t have many options. Even if he moved off the ranch, he’d still have to commute there every weekday. That’s where his job was. Finding a job for a one-armed computer tech was going to be a stretch, and he knew it. The money he got from the government, coupled with what he earned from his work on the ranch, wouldn’t afford him any luxuries.
Reed ignored the few stares he got as he made his way back to his truck. It didn’t stop his new neighbors from looking at him as though he were less than a man. All because he was missing one of his four limbs. They couldn’t see that there wasn’t much that limited him. The only thing holding him back in his life was not proposing to the woman he fully expected to spend the rest of his life with.
Reed and Sarai had been talking every morning for the past week. They spoke early in the mornings due to the time difference. Every day he’d wanted to bring up the zoning issue on the ranch and casually work in his need to get married. But he didn’t want his proposal to hinge on the zoning issue. He was convinced he wouldn’t find a better woman for him than Sarai, not in the cyber world or the real world. So, he’d wait until she came back.
He had to postpone their talk this morning to take this appointment. She hadn’t protested, saying she had work to do and could use the time. But they were back on schedule tomorrow. He would broach the topic with her then. Not about the zoning. But definitely about their relationship status.
Could he claim her as his girlfriend even though they hadn’t met in person? Maybe he could even fly over to France this weekend. It would cost him the deposit on the apartment, but it would be worth it to see her in the flesh.
Reed’s phone rang and his heart pounded at the sound. Could it be her? Was she calling him in spite of their later date? He fished the device out of his pocket hoping to see Sarai’s smiling face in the caller ID. Instead, he saw Fran’s mug.
“Yeah?” Reed leaned against the passenger side of his truck as he pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hey, you still in town?”
“Just about to head back.”
“Eva’s got a flat. I’m all the way on the other side of town. Do you think you could give her a hand changing the tire?”
The knot that had lodged itself between Reed’s shoulder blades during his apartment visit and tour of his new neighborhood loosened. He felt the phantom pain in his long-lost hand relax. “You know I’ve only got one of those.”
Fran made an impatient sound. “I’m serious, man.”
Reed knew Fran was serious. His brothers didn’t think twice about his ability to do what was necessary. Something as simple as changing a tire, a feat which most four-limbed human beings couldn’t do with two
hands, they thought nothing of asking a one-armed man to perform.
“I’m on my way to her,” Reed said. He disconnected and hopped in behind the wheel.
He found Eva fifteen minutes later. She was parked near Patel’s. Reed greeted the petite brunette with a grin and a hug.
“I told Fran that I could’ve called Triple-A,” she said.
Reed made the same impatient sound that Fran had made a quarter hour ago over the phone. Eva was fiercely independent. She was slowly learning that all the men on the ranch would move heaven and earth for each other and the ones they loved. Reed wanted Sarai to experience the same devotion.
Sarai had told him that her parents traveled a lot and they didn’t spend time together. Reed had assumed her parents were divorced but was surprised to learn that they weren’t. They simply crossed paths whenever their work put them in the same country.
He couldn’t understand how that worked. Once he and Sarai were on the same continent he was determined to have her close by his side. The idea of flying to France was looking more and more appealing to him each moment.
For now, Reed set to work changing Eva’s tire. But when he pulled out the spare, he saw that it, too, was flat.
“We can wait for Fran to bring another spare. Or we can leave it here and come back for it tomorrow.”
“I just got this car,” moaned Eva.
“Yeah, but you insisted on getting a used car with your own money instead of letting your husband buy you a brand new one.”
“I don’t need a new car.”
Eva was a notorious penny pincher. Fran had a habit of telling his wife something was used or discounted when it wasn’t just to weaken the fight he’d get out of her. Reed suspected this new used car would stay here on the side of the road, leaving Fran the perfect excuse to buy his frugal wife a brand new model.
“I’m so sorry to take you out of your way,” said Eva.
“You know it was no trouble. And I’d never leave you stranded.”
“You’ve got crud all over your shirt because of me.” Eva wiped at the grease stain on his shirt.
Reed caught Eva’s fingers in his hand and tugged her to move forward. “Why don’t you pay me back with dinner. Patel’s is just around the corner.”
“Deal. Thanks for coming out. You’re my hero.” Eva pecked the side of Reed’s cheek.
Reed leaned into her affectionate embrace. Eva was maternal to her core. Reed would miss her and Maggie fussing over him daily. But he wanted his own wife to fuss over him.
He placed Eva in the crook of his good arm and they fell into step with one another. As they turned the corner, another woman bumped into his chest. The bag of food she’d been carrying fell out of her hands and splattered onto the ground. The smell of curry and other spices wafted through the air.
“I’m so sorry …” Reed began and then trailed off. It couldn’t be. He was hallucinating. “Sarai?”
Chapter Ten
Sarai’s entire life flashed before her eyes. She saw herself at seven when her mother first pushed her onto the stage at beauty pageants when she just wanted to hang out with her friends playing Barbies. She felt the ache in her jaw at seventeen from smiling at casting call after casting call where she was poked, prodded, pinched, and spoken about as though she wasn’t there. She smelled the rancid smell of coffee and cola and cigarettes at twenty-one as she crammed her body into dresses a size too small and heels too narrow.
As the scenes of her short life flashed before her eyes, Sarai felt the agony of drowning in tears of the rejection, of the loneliness, of the constant hunger of modeling. That pain of not being good enough had been clawing its way back into her consciousness over the past week as she tried and failed to exercise. As she tried and failed to eat mindfully. As she tried and failed to lose the weight she’d learned to accept was normal and healthy.
She’d taken to looking in the mirror at the evidence again. She’d taken to stepping on the scale and seeing the cold hard facts. She’d thought she’d gained a new lease on life during her therapy. The truth was that all she’d gained was weight.
Her reflection in the glass, the numbers on the scale, they told a different story. They told the story of a once beautiful girl who had let herself go. All she’d gained over the last couple of years was weight. The weight that wasn’t coming off. The weight that would keep her from receiving the real live affection of any man, including the one who was now standing in front of her.
“Sarai, is that you?”
Was it her? Was this woman standing before him the real Sarai Austin? She didn’t feel like herself. She’d been fasting for the last five days. When she’d stepped on the scale this morning it had gone up two pounds instead of falling even a single ounce. Devastation didn’t begin to describe how she felt.
She had to face facts. She wasn’t going to lose this weight. She’d let it hang around too long. And now it weighed her down heavily on the sidewalk outside of Patel’s standing in a puddle of curried rice and buttered chicken that she wouldn’t even get to eat.
And Reed was standing there, looking down on her. Standing with a petite, skinny woman with a bright smile and big eyes. Her waist was small and her hips flared. She wasn’t model tall, but she had the kind of figure men were now clamoring over on social media. And she was in Reed’s arms.
Sarai couldn’t muster the energy to run. All she could do was stand there with the late day sun glaring brightly in her face.
When a cloud moved in she saw clearly. When he said her name, she knew for sure. The life she’d been trying to carve for herself by shaving off the pounds, that life was over.
“I can’t believe it,” Reed continued.
Sarai waited for the shouting to start. Surely his anger would burst forward now that she’d been caught in a web of lies. Or worse, what if he simply recoiled from her, walked around her, and never spoke to her again. It would be a far worse rejection than any agent or fashion designer or photographer. Because she did want to stand in Reed’s light.
“Is this why you couldn’t talk today?” he asked, “Because you were flying back?”
Sarai hadn’t been able to talk with Reed today because she was under a work deadline that she’d put off all week. It was highly unlike her to miss a deadline, but her body image and weight issues had consumed her. The only time she had felt a semblance of normality was in her morning talks with Reed. And the more she talked to him, the more guilty she felt.
It was a vicious cycle. She’d been spinning around so fast that she just needed for it all to stop.
She’d spent the entire day yesterday in bed. Then, this morning, she’d woken up and forced out a blasé post about choosing the best toner to contour a thin nose.
The art of contouring was just a diversion away from the truth. At the end of the night, the makeup came off, and the big nose would be revealed every time. She wasn’t fooling anyone. She was still waiting for her readers to call her out on it. But as yet, no one had.
“This is the best surprise,” said Reed. He was smiling at her, not sneering, not glaring, not even frowning. His handsome face was even handsomer in person. And then she was in his arms.
Reed let go of the petite brunette and pulled Sarai into a one-armed hug. But even with that single arm Sarai felt enveloped. She felt surrounded by him.
Her arms came around his back as her sneakered feet squished in her ruined dinner. Reed’s shoulders were broad. He smelled like a fresh breeze and warm bread. Sarai wanted to take a bite.
He wasn’t angry with her. He thought she’d just returned from her fake trip. He still didn’t realize she’d been here all the time, hiding because she was ashamed of the way she looked.
Then she realized. She still looked the way she looked. Even worse, she was in an unflattering sweat suit with minimal makeup.
Of course, she’d put on blush, mascara, and a bit of gloss. She wasn’t a savage. But she’d done no contouring, and she had on no eyeshadow.
No, he was looking at her face. He was looking into her eyes. And he was smiling with a smile huge enough for her to fall in.
“I’m so happy to see you, Sarai.”
And at that moment, Sarai no longer wanted to hide. She didn’t care that the flesh of her arms flapped against his back. She didn’t care that her stomach pushed against the elastic of her waistband. She didn’t care that if she moved her thunder thighs would crack the pavement.
All she cared about was standing under Reed’s smiling gaze. And she’d do anything to stay in this exact spot for the rest of her life.
Chapter Eleven
It was like one of those moments when he was dreaming and he knew he was dreaming and he could direct the course of his dreams. Reed had been dreaming about Sarai for weeks. Nothing X-rated. Just dreams of being in her presence, holding her, talking to her, sitting beside her, holding her hand. Most of the dreams didn’t even end with a kiss.
This—the embrace he held her in right now—this was a dream come true. He didn’t want to wake up. He didn’t want to let her go.
If he’d had any doubts about her, which he didn’t, he was certain now. The reality of Sarai, the smell of her, the feel of her, the small gasp she let out as he gave her warm body a squeeze, let him know that this was the real deal.
“I’m so happy to see you, Sarai,” he said when he finally was able to let her go. “I can’t believe you’re standing here in front of me.”
“Yeah. Yeah well, as you said, I couldn’t talk to you this morning because I was coming here. Home. I’ve come back home. Unexpectedly. And it looks like I’ve surprised you.”
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