by Ruby Lang
She took a deep breath.
“I am a smoother-over,” Ian said. “I try to make jokes and unruffle feathers, and then I get the hell out. There’s got to be another word for that. Something in Merriam-Webster. If you can find it, or popularize it, then I promise you, you can have all my underpants.”
It wasn’t that funny, but Petra gave him a gulping laugh sob. He took one hand off of hers and rummaged in the glove compartment for tissues. Of course, he didn’t keep tissues. There were obviously much more important things to store in there, like gas station receipts from 2002 and a used coffee cup. He wiped her face gently with his thumbs instead.
“I’m on your side, Petra. I was nice to them in the end because, well, I’m hoping that I get to see them again. With you. And that it won’t be awkward.”
“You like them.”
“I like you. I want to be with you. Maybe I didn’t handle that well and I know that you’re worried about your mom, but let’s not turn this into doubts about us.”
Petra took a few breaths. “I’m trying not to,” she said, “but it’s hard to separate everything when…”
He wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him when she trailed off. All he knew was that it hurt to see her like this and he felt responsible. He tried to keep talking. “You’re right,” he said, “I don’t commit even when I say I have. I avoid things and I disappear. Growing up in my family, it was tough not to do that.”
She was staring out the window, trying to wipe her nose. In the reflection, her eyes caught his. He wished she would turn around. He wanted to hold her, not because she was crying, but because he felt alone. But she was still buckled in her seat belt, and he in his.
“My dad worked a lot around the world,” he said. “He brought us with him. Insisted on it. My mother, though, she had trouble adjusting. She didn’t go out, ever. Even when we lived in English-speaking countries, and eventually, even when we lived in other parts of the United States, she just stopped being able to interact with people. My dad didn’t acknowledge all of her problems. He just worked all the time. A lot of it was on me.”
He saw her eyes close.
“I was the one who found her. It was probably an accident. She’d gotten on a ladder to clean something. She was always tidying, always cleaning until her hands got blisters. She must have slipped and fallen. Maybe if someone had been there, but my dad hadn’t been home for days. I was away with friends, doing God knows what. Leg fracture, the coroner said, which caused a pulmonary embolism.”
He rubbed his forehead and took off his glasses. “And, of course, I blame myself. Because what kind of screwed-up, complicated adult would I be if I didn’t?”
He attempted a smile. She looked at him through her tears, wiped her nose on her sleeve, then took his hand and kissed it.
Then she hit him on the shoulder. “What the hell?” she said.
He couldn’t believe it. “You hit me?” he said.
She nodded and then she took her hand out of his and thwacked him again.
“I am never going for a long car ride ever, ever again,” she said, very clearly, looking into his eyes, “because every time I do, it ends up in tears.”
Her face fractured momentarily, but she pulled herself up again and looked him in the eye. He popped her seat belt and his and took her in his arms. He rubbed her back and let her snuffle messily into his shirt.
“I know,” he said, kissing her hair. “I know.”
“I’m supposed to be consoling you,” she said.
“I think we’re consoling each other.” After a while, they switched seats and pulled out onto the road again.
Petra glanced sideways at Ian and waited.
“Well, at least you don’t pity me,” he said, after a while. “My mother’s relatives, my aunts and uncles and cousins, they used to just look at me and shake their heads. I lived with a few of them for a while. My aunt Patty, in particular, would take my elbow every time she saw me and say, And how are you? as if we were always in the middle of the same conversation, and the conversation was always about my neglectful foreign dad and my weird, depressed mom. Is it any wonder that I hardly visit?
“And then there was the fact that I blamed my mother, for a long time, for her own death. Partly because I thought she was the one who was determined to be unhappy. And my dad, who wasn’t even there, he seems to get off scot-free in my mind and in my feelings. That makes me feel pretty guilty, the fact that that happens.”
Was he ever going to stop talking? he wondered. Petra looked almost blank from all of his blather and the things she’d had to feel today. She never seemed drained. She could be up all night, or grumpy in the morning, but there was always a restlessness to her mouth and hands, a spark in her eye. Hers was the most animated face that he’d ever encountered in his life. But her visage stayed still now when he told her these things about his family, and himself. And he still couldn’t stop talking.
Maybe he was trying to get her to hate him. He had started hating himself.
Finally, they managed to get back to the city. Miraculously, he found a parking space near her building. He pulled her bag out of the back seat and held on to the strap as she climbed out of the car.
He bowed his head.
“The other reason I don’t want to be in a car again is I couldn’t do this when I really wanted to,” she said, pulling him down to her.
He let her weave her fingers into his hair and pull his forehead to hers. Her eyelashes brushed his cheeks once, twice, as she blinked. She kissed him hard and pressed his cheek into hers.
I love you, he thought, embracing her with relief, stunned at the feeling. I love you.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It was entirely too soon to be thinking this way.
She was in love with him. She was in love with his resilience and his kindness and she wanted to soothe his heart.
He had been so young when it happened. He had been left alone, making his way in a strange country. Daily, he was forced to speak a language that reminded him of his dead parent. She could see it in his face. And his face, as he looked past her and told her his story, was so resigned and broken. She wanted to cradle his limbs and smooth his brow. She wanted to kiss his lips and take off his shirt and warm him with her body. She wanted to touch every bump on his skull. She wanted to heal every hurt that he had encountered, because that was the kind of sucker she was for him. After all these years, it was clearly too fresh on his face and from his throat and she wanted to heal him.
He’s my boyfriend, not my patient.
Petra was alone at home, wandering around the mess and eating a bowl of peas. She wore a pair of pajama pants with black and white cow spots on them and a tank top that was stained with, she suspected, Tabasco. The spatter pattern matched the cowhide look. Or not.
She felt unsettled and messy and unsexy. Ian had gone reluctantly back to the restaurant after dropping her off Sunday night and the last time he’d texted, he’d been embroiled in some kind of refrigeration emergency.
Maybe it was good that he wasn’t there. She was feeling irrationally in love. She loved the resilient hairs on his chest and arms and thighs which sprang back into place when she pressed them. She loved the odd scars over his body that suggested a childhood climbing trees or crawling through underbrush. He was happy with her fascination except when, in the motel room, she told him that a mole on his chest was a third nipple. He’d looked down at his chest, so adorably disconcerted that she rolled around on the bed giggling until he seized her and she stopped being able to laugh. They said people who had long been together memorized their lovers’ bodies. Despite her curiosity, she would never know enough about his.
She’d known things would be complicated with him. She knew from the start.
She couldn’t brood now. She decided that this lonely night was the time to throw out all her medical journals. She read everything online, anyway. If she was going to be conflicted about her feelings for Ian, then she cou
ld at least organize and control the rest of her life. She was staring at the pile on her table when the buzzer sounded and her first thought was that she hoped to God it was Ian, coming to rescue her from her reckless ambition. And her second thought was that he absolutely could not see her bowl of mushy peas or her stained clothing. She resembled a giant baby.
Luckily, it was Helen.
“We need to talk,” Helen hollered into the intercom. “Let me up.”
Petra let her shoulders down in relief. Or disappointment.
After a minute, Helen stepped in and surveyed the wreckage of the room. She grabbed the bowl of peas from Petra’s hands and set it in the sink. “I brought chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “And a gallon container of whole milk.”
She got wineglasses from out of the cupboards and poured them each a generous amount. She motioned to Petra to sit on the couch, and she opened the bag between them.
They ate and drank in silence.
“So yes, I cheated on Mike,” Helen said, in a flat voice, as if they’d already been discussing it to death. “And it wasn’t the result of reciprocal infidelity, where I catch him with a brunette on our couch and decide to take revenge with the mailman. I just went out one day, saw someone who turned my crank for whatever reason, and I took him home with me to my apartment, and even gave him coffee in the morning. I have no defense for what I did. I wasn’t drinking. No one slipped me a roofie or told me to do something I didn’t want to do. Basically, the only thing that I can figure is that I’m a horrible, untrustworthy person who can’t be in a relationship and maybe doesn’t deserve one.”
If she believed in magic, Petra would have begun to think that someone had cast a lurid truth-telling spell over everyone she knew: Ian, Helen, Sarah, her mother, Ellie.
“Mike was starting to talk about getting married,” Helen added. “Clearly, he had a picture in his mind: Physicians in love, building a future of good health and excruciating smugness. My life felt like such a mess at the time that I couldn’t stand myself. The timing was so wrong for me. I could have just broken up with him, like a normal person, but instead, I chose to inflict maximum damage, on him, on us.”
Petra looked over at Helen, poor, self-flagellating Helen. “You couldn’t have known that I’d get you involved in some debate about dating a patient and that Sarah would choose that moment to go on a rampage and take us all down. Also, if it makes any difference, Dr. Mikey is an asshole.”
“He is kind of pompous, isn’t he? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I figured you already knew but didn’t mind because he was smart. Or, at least, good at what he did. Did you like this guy, this man you slept with?” Petra asked.
“Maybe,” said Helen. She paused for a moment and looked down at the cookie in her hand. “This is such a cliché. Do you have any carrots and hummus or anything? What I’d give for Sarah to come over with kale juice. We could purge ourselves of all this crap.”
In her roundabout way, Helen was asking after Sarah.
Petra sipped her milk. “Just call her,” she said.
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Helen said.
They both drank and stared ahead.
“So,” said Helen, “how’s the guy?”
“Ian,” Petra said. “We went to see my mother yesterday. My mom wants to get married to a not-yet-divorced guy and she sold her house. Shit hit the fan. We drove away. Then he really opened up to me, and then my heart really broke.”
“You love him,” Helen stated baldly.
“I think I do.”
Helen nodded, then she shook her head. “So, why are you so sad about this? You’re making this too complicated and I’ve got to wonder why,” she said. “Look, I get it. You feel guilty about how this relationship started, that he was your patient. But don’t you think maybe that’s an excuse to not just jump into this relationship? Things change between people all the time. Too much second-guessing and trying to explain things that you can’t explain unless you’re in his head. Why not just go with it, see how it pans out?”
“Because if I go with it, I’ll have to admit that I care for him.” Petra paused. “It’s too soon,” she added. “It’s not the right time in my life. I’m just starting out as a doctor. I need to establish myself and not pour my energies into some guy. I don’t want to be that kind of fool. I’ve already made so many mistakes, Sarah. I’ve been practicing for less than a year and I’ve already screwed up my career so much. Starting up a solo practice right away was one of my mistakes but I love it. He’s one of my mistakes and I love him. I don’t know how much more I can take.”
And for the millionth time in two days, Petra found herself crying. Helen immediately grabbed her and hugged her fiercely, and Petra hugged back. The crumbs from her sleeve stuck to Helen’s sweater, but Petra figured Helen wouldn’t mind. Or at least, she wouldn’t see them.
“If you can cut me some slack about the Mike thing, why can’t you do the same for yourself?” Helen asked, her voice muffled.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, stop thinking about your career track and worrying about money and getting ahead. Let yourself be a fool for once and see what happens,” Helen said. She looked up at Petra with a tiny smile. “What’s the worst that can happen? So you close up shop and find work in a hospital or a clinic. So you break your heart. You’re already acting like your heart’s broken. How much worse can it get?”
• • •
The buzzer rang too early in the morning. Petra barely managed to register it, but soon she heard a thumping and then voices came from the living room. Great, she thought, Helen had let someone in. With a groan, she got up and slumped down the hallway.
It was Ian.
Ian and Helen had already introduced themselves, and she shot Petra a glance that indicated that either Helen found him delightful or that she was going to have some sort of seizure. Petra supposed that either were possible. Ian looked delicious and he held a white paper bag that smelled like almonds and butter. Helen was highly susceptible to both stimuli.
Helen, of course, looked graceful and delicate, as usual, with her soulful brown eyes, arched brows, and a swan-like neck. She would have made a lovely victim for the guillotine. A surprising number of men liked that sort of thing.
And Petra, she looked like shit, or like she’d rolled around in it. There were crumbs and bits of chocolate chip smeared on her tank top. She didn’t want to think of her sheets.
“I thought I’d stop by before you went to work,” Ian said. “I brought almond croissants.”
Helen sighed and fanned herself. Perhaps she was laying it on a little thick, but she could hardly say anything to Petra in front of him. Ian shot Helen a charming smile. For a moment, Petra felt jealous, but he turned his bright beams to her, and she forgot all about Helen.
“It looks like you two had a girls’ night,” he said.
“We laughed, we cried,” Helen said. “I’ll go make coffee.”
She practically winked at Petra before disappearing with the bag. Ian stepped up close to Petra. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around last night but by the time I got out, it was way too late. It looks like you had good company anyway,” he said, putting his hands on her hips. He gazed down at her mouth.
She supposed she could have told him the truth, that she had been miserable when Helen showed up unexpectedly. And that she’d continued to feel miserable afterward.
She put her hand in front of his lips. “My breath is terrible,” she said.
He lapped at her middle finger delicately. “I don’t care,” he said.
Hell.
“Do you have chocolate on your top?” he asked, stepping even closer.
“It’s cheap chocolate from very bad cookies,” Petra whispered.
She was supposed to be staying away from him. Her friend was in the kitchen. So much about this was so wrong. But while he was not ideal for her in theory, in person he seemed so perfect.
“How
bad were the cookies?” he asked in her ear, his voice velvet.
“So bad,” she sighed.
They were joking and yet her body still thrummed. “They were hard,” she said, “and I ate ever so many of them.”
Ian snickered.
“I was worried for a minute,” he said. “There were some things I wanted to talk to you about and I didn’t know how to say them.”
He touched her cheek, but her eyes shuttered and she drew back.
“I should go brush my teeth,” she said.
• • •
He got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. What was wrong? he wondered, staring after her like a lost fawn. Did she not feel some of what he felt? He told himself that he’d be satisfied if she had even a fraction of the love he had—it was, after all, very soon—but he knew he wouldn’t be content for long.
She seemed so happy to see him. He told himself that it couldn’t be faked. Inevitably, she seemed to catch herself, and then, it was like viewing her light through a scrim.
He shook his head. Something was off. He had felt so close to her over the weekend. Even when she told him off and accused him of trying to smooth things over, she was immediate and honest and full of sparks. It was an extension of the sex, he thought, or maybe the sex was an extension of them.
It was bullshit that men could separate love and the sex easily, he thought, his mind flashing over memories of the weekend, of the motel bed. It would be like sifting through her hair, trying to decide which strands were black, which were brown, and which were red.
It did sound like a nice way to pass the time.
With Petra, it was all over her face and limbs: intensity, playfulness, sorrow, joy, happiness, fear, abandon. There were planes and shadings to how he felt when he was inside her, to how he felt when she settled down against him with her eyelids still fluttering and made the world seem softer. He sat down on the couch and pulled a throw pillow over his middle in case Helen walked in.
He sighed gustily and his arm tightened around the cushion.