by Lori L. Otto
“God, no,” I tell her, feeling certain she’s referring to the people who scale the skyscrapers, washing windows. “I won’t be painting buildings like that. I think the largest one would be like, I don’t know–”
“Two stories tall,” Dad interrupts. He shakes his head at me minutely, not wanting me to tell her the truth. I didn’t think ten stories sounded that bad.
“Yeah, it’ll be like painting a house,” I continue Dad’s lie, kicking him under the table.
“That makes me feel better. Speaking of your paintings, Livvy, Jacks says that they’ve been working on your gallery space this spring.”
“That’s what he tells me, although I’m not sure why. I won’t be around to contribute anything this summer.”
“I think we have more than enough pieces to show. I was just thinking about having some viewings this summer. Since we still don’t have an agent for you, all of the calls for Olivia Choisie are going through my lawyer, and he says there’s a definite demand for your work.”
“Well... I’m kind of glad I won’t be here to see if that’s true or not.”
“We sold quite a few pieces last year. And those people seem to have some good taste and influence in Manhattan.”
“Anyway,” Grandma says, breaking back into the conversation. “I would love to see your gallery.”
“Oh,” I say, nodding my head. “Sure, I guess Dad can take you there.”
“I’d like you to show me your work,” she says, looking at me hopefully. “I want to understand your paintings. Your mother tells me you’re a very emotive artist. I want to hear what motivates you.”
“Well,” I laugh, “I’m not sure Daddy wants to hear all that,” I warn her.
“Oh, Jacks is a grown boy. He can handle it. Or he can plug his ears and ignore us. I would be honored if you would share this with me.”
I look at my watch, seeing it’s already been over an hour. When I glance back up at Dad, I can tell he’s waiting with a question. “Got somewhere else to be?”
“I just told Jon I’d be back soon,” I say.
“Well, he told us last night that he had plans until mid-afternoon. Remember? Jackson asked him to come over and play some baseball?”
“Yeah, but. I mean, yeah, I guess he did.” I pull my phone out to send Jon a message, but notice he’s sent me one first.
“It’s going to take me at least a few more hours. Meet me at three?”
“Grandma, I’d love to show you my paintings. Dad, why don’t you take us to the gallery?”
“I hope you like it.”
“I trust Anna, Daddy. She’s never wrong with her translation of what I like.”
When we get in the car, Dad starts driving north. “Dad, I thought this place was in Chelsea.”
“It is,” he says. “I’m just taking the scenic route. Grandma wanted to see the view over the Hudson.”
“It reminds me of when we were much younger,” she says. “Your grandpa would take me out to a nice dinner in Manhattan. Sometimes, he would pick a place in one of the taller buildings that had windows facing west. We would try to pick out our building across the river.”
“Well, isn’t Hoboken right across from Chelsea?” I ask.
“Yes,” Dad says, “but it was the approach that you wanted to see, right, Mom?”
“Yes, we could never actually see our home from the restaurant, but I was always certain I could see it from 12th Avenue.”
I look at Dad suspiciously in the rearview mirror. He winks at me, silently telling me there was no possible way, so I know not to question her. I’m sure she couldn’t see their old home from this road, but if it brings back some memories, far be it for me to mess that up.
After passing the Lincoln Tunnel entrance, both Dad and Grandma make a production out of looking across the river. “Dad, watch the road, please.”
“Yes, Emi,” Dad says sarcastically.
“Dad, isn’t this the street, though?” He finally looks at one of the signs, realizing he missed the turn onto 21st Street.
“We’ll double back,” he says as if he planned this. I relax into my seat, not understanding why I’m so anxious. I have hours to kill before Jon will be back at the loft.
Once we finally make it to the studio space, I inspect the progress, impressed with the choices Anna and my father have made. I suggest more lighting on a few paintings. Dad tells me he’ll remember, but he seems distracted, checking his phone every few minutes.
Grandma asks me questions about a few of the paintings, and after I tell her my inspiration, she gives me her own interpretation of the art. Dad and I smile at one another behind her. She keeps looking for literal items, recognizable subjects, in my abstract art. She reminds me of my father, a few years ago. I don’t bother to correct her, instead enjoying her ideas.
“What are you looking at?” I finally ask my dad, now feeling like he’s holding us up.
“Just checking the time. I guess it’s time for us to head back, huh?”
“Like, an hour ago,” I mumble to myself, careful to make sure he doesn’t hear me. I know he did this for his mother, and partly for me. I do appreciate him. I just have places to be.
He takes me back to the Ritz to get my car. I tell my grandmother goodbye, and when she asks if I’ll be meeting them for dinner tonight, I explain my Saturday night date plans and let her know we’ll be having lunch at my parents’ house tomorrow before I take her back to Stamford.
I’m surprised that Jon isn’t at the loft when I get there, even later than I told him I’d be. I ask Francisco to let me know when he gets in. While I wait, I mix together his favorite summer drink of orange juice, lemon-lime soda and a splash of cherry juice. When my doorman calls up to let me know he’s on his way, I get out a highball glass, fill it with ice, and pour the fruit drink over it, topping it off with a two fresh cherries.
“Sorry, that went longer than I thought,” he says as soon as he walks through the door.
“It’s fine. I just got home a few minutes ago, too. We had to go by the gallery.”
“Really? How was it?”
“Pretty cool. Almost done. I’ll take you by before I leave for Brazil. We should go have a picnic or something there. Here,” I say, offering him the drink. He looks surprised, grinning as he picks up one of the cherries and popping it in his mouth.
“For you?” he offers me the second one. I let him feed it to me, chewing the fruit and then putting the stem in my mouth.
“Ready?” he asks me.
“What’s the deal?”
“First one to tie the knot gets thirty minutes of completely undivided attention.”
“To do what?” I ask him smiling, with my mouth already trying to win.
“Anything.”
I pull the stem out of my mouth. “Anything at all?”
“Yep.”
“Why aren’t you trying?” I ask, putting it back in my mouth.
He takes a sip of the drink I’ve made him. In fact, he takes more than one sip, drinking all of the beverage before he puts the stem in his mouth.
“You never win,” he shrugs his shoulders. Fifteen seconds later, he produces the knot, holding it with his teeth.
“What do you want?” I ask him, setting the stem on the counter and walking up to him. I put my hands in his front pockets, closing the gap between us.
“I want to save my thirty minutes for tonight,” he says. “And it’s a surprise.”
I pull my hands out of his pockets, clutching a scrap of paper between my fingers. “Well, what do you want to do right now then?” I ask.
“I want to give you a little attention.” He touches my nose with the tip of his finger, leaning against the kitchen island.
“Then why didn’t you just let me win?”
“Because I don’t want to wait that long,” he says sexily, pulling the paper from my hands.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It was a receipt from the coffee place we were studying at.” He shrugs, wadding the tiny slip up and putting it back in his jeans pocket.
I look at him sideways. “Then throw it away.”
His expression confirms he’s lying to me. “You don’t want me to do that,” he says. “Just trust me, okay?”
“Why should I?” I ask him playfully.
“Because I asked nicely.”
Curious, I decide to let him be for now, determined to find the paper later when he’s not wearing his jeans anymore. I take his hand in mine and lead him to the bed, trying to speed things up.
“Can we do some incentive studying?” he asks. “I need to memorize a few things for my Baroque architecture class on Thursday.”
I nod my head quickly. Our method had been developed innocently enough when we were both in high school, and we’d barter kisses for right answers, but these days, the stakes are much higher. We still start with kisses, but it quickly progresses to undressing one another. We follow that up with more strategic kissing–and let it go from there. Since we are both always pretty prepared for our classwork, the foreplay never seems to last as long as it does when we go at our own natural pace. Sometimes, I purposefully miss answers to prolong our making out, though. When we get to certain points, he does the same.
“I like incentive studying,” I tell him as I let go of him, skipping to my backpack to get some flash cards I’d made to help me study. Today’s lesson was going to be sexier than normal, which he would soon find out. “Eu preciso estudar para minha prova final de Portugués.”
“Essa é uma boa idéia,” he returns. I turn around quickly, surprised at his response.
“That sounds good?” I repeat his phrase in English.
“You get the first kiss,” he says. I grab the notecards and kick off my flats, meeting him on the bed. He gives me the obligatory first peck, then takes off his own shoes.
“How’d you do that?” I ask.
“Eu tenho estudado. Eu quero ajudá-la a falar a língua.”
“You’ve been studying to help me speak the language?”
“And you’ve earned the second kiss,” he says, this time putting the palm of his hand on the back of my head and bringing my lips to his slowly. He leans his forehead against mine and nudges my nose with his. “You’re being stingy today.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you get the grand prize already for what you just said to me. Portuguese, Jon? I’m stunned,” I laugh at him.
“I checked out some language lessons from the library. I listen constantly between classes.”
“I wish you could go with me,” I say with a slight whine. “It would be a million times more helpful.”
“Well, maybe we can conduct all of our phone conversations in Portuguese. I know you’ll be fine. Give me one of your cards,” he says.
“You first.” He hands me a stack of pictures. I pick up the first one, noting his neat print on the back.
“Sheldonian Theater, Christopher Wren.”
“Nope,” I say playfully.
“Bullshit, give me my kiss,” he says, grabbing the card and checking the back. He grins, seeing that his answer was right and tossing the card toward the window. I lean into him, delivering the PG-rated kiss that comes next, but he has other things in mind. He gently pushes me back until I’m lying on the bed. He climbs over me so his legs straddle my body, kissing me a few more times before kneeling up and pulling a card off my stack. He looks at me as he reads the card in his best Portuguese accent. “Eu quero que você tire sua camiseta lentamente.” He clears his throat. Of course he can see the English translation.
“I’m not sure, can you read it again?” I ask coyly. He says it once more. “No, I’m not getting it. Maybe you can act it out for me,” I suggest.
“This doesn’t seem very fair.”
“It’s not fair, but it’s really sexy.” He pulls at the hem of his t-shirt, glaring at me. “Oh, I know! ‘I want you to take your shirt off slowly.’” He does as instructed, and I drag my fingers over his abdominal muscles.
“Do these cards go in any specific order? Or can I mix them up and get to the part I really want?”
“If you can pick out what you really want without looking at the translations, I will do it right now. We can skip all the others.”
“Challenge accepted.” He thumbs through the cards and pulls one out. “I wonder what sexo oral means?”
“Wait, does it say em você or em mim at the end?”
He grins, knowing he got the card he wanted. “Em você.” I start to unbutton his fly. “I’m loving this twist,” he says.
“I’m sure you are.” He helps me climb out from beneath him, then settles himself against the pillows. I start kissing his chest, noticing he’s still sorting through my flash cards, which are now fanned out messily on the bed.
“Wait, here’s the em mim one, too.” He shows me the card before flicking it aside. Tugging at the shoulders of my shirt, I lift my arms. We take turns removing articles of clothing from each other’s bodies. I try to describe what we’re doing along the way, trying to remember the dirty Portuguese I’d been learning to memorize.
“Shut up, Livvy,” he says finally, his laughter overshadowed with desire.
“Cale a boca!” I correct him.
His kisses stop abruptly, inches away from their final destination. “Wait, why in the hell are you learning how to say these things in Portuguese?” he asks.
“Because I thought it just might lead to this. You can continue,” I suggest, wanting him badly.
“I will only continue if you swear to me you will only mutter these things to me.”
“Eu prometo.”
“Diga- em Inglês,” he says.
“I promise.”
“Eu prometo. That one could come in handy someday.”
“Cale a boca, Jon,” I repeat to him in between kisses, moving my lips down his body.
“Right.”
I forget all about the slip of paper until Jon gets up hours later in his boxers to take a phone call. By the time I check the pocket of his jeans, it’s gone. I check the floor around the bed, hoping it fell out at some point, but I can’t find it anywhere.
“Holy shit,” Jon says after hanging up the phone.
“What?”
“Mom’s moving back to the city in June. Well, she wants to move to Queens.”
“Without your brothers?”
“No, they’ll come, too. She’ll be here in a few weeks to start looking for a place.”
“You don’t seem too happy about it. I mean, you’ll have people to keep you company now. It makes me feel better.”
“Well. I guess I’m in shock. And I’m going to be so busy that... you know what, can I have the key to the roof? I really need to talk to her about something... private. I want to make sure this is the right thing for her.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised that he wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about something in front of me. “Yeah, sure.” I fish the key out of a drawer in the bathroom that my apartment shares with Matty and take it to him. He goes into the bedroom and pulls on his jeans before coming over to me and kissing me on the way out.
“I saw you check the pocket,” he says.
“I’m scouring this place while you’re up there.”
“Good luck with that,” he says, flashing the wadded up paper that he was holding in the palm of his hand. I squint at him as he waves at me, walking backwards all the way to the door.
CHAPTER 20
I had offered to help Rachelle and Katrina move into the summer apartment they’d selected on the Saturday after finals. We’d all been so busy the past few weeks with our tests and projects that it’s nice spending some quality time with them. This being my last weekend with Jon and my family, though, I don’t hang around much longer after we unload the last of the boxes.
“I’m really going to miss you guys,” I tell them both.
“We’ll miss you,
too, Liv, but I’m sure we’ll be in touch all the time. And time will fly. I promise. The three of us will be moving in to our own apartment in September in no time,” Rachelle says.
“Yeah, promise me you’ll pick someplace nice.”
“We’ll send pictures before signing anything,” Katrina adds.
“Cool. We’re going to have so much fun.”
“Go be a star in Brazil,” my older roommate says. “Maybe we can all go see your work next spring break.”
“We’ll see. Hopefully it will be worth seeing.”
“Shut up,” Katrina says as she gives me a hug. “Make sure you pick up your confidence on your way out of the States.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just nervous, that’s all. Have a great summer!” I hug Rachelle, too, and get my purse before heading out to my car.
I stop by the dorm one last time to pick up the last box of toiletries. I’d taken most of my stuff last weekend, borrowing my uncle Steven’s SUV and my boyfriend’s upper body strength.
I knock on Tim’s door. “This is it?”
“This is it,” I tell him.
“Did you get your painting from the basement?”
“I want it to stay in the residence hall. I’ll feel like I’ve left my mark.”
“You certainly have,” my RA says. “Good luck to you. Take some pictures when you’re down there and email them to me. I want to see what you’re up to.”
“Okay. Have a good trip to Thailand with Brittany.”
“I will.” We hug one another and say goodbye. I’m sure it’s the last time I’ll see him since he’s graduating next week. “Goodbye, Livvy.”
“Bye.”
I still haven’t figured out how to handle this weekend, and I worry about it all the way home. My parents want to spend as much time with me as possible, and I want that, too. But Jon wants the same, and I know that inviting him over to Mom and Dad’s isn’t going to be his ideal way to spend our last weekend together. It’s not mine, either, but it’s the only way I can have them all around me at once. That’s the only solution that gives me as much time as possible with the people I love most.
Jon surprises me by being at the house when I pull up in front of it. “Hey, baby.”