by Tasha Jones
“I like Richard,” Trevor said, and the words pierced through my train of thought. “He says he’ll see me again when we get the cast off.”
“That’s great, honey,” I said and turned into our street.
“I want to see him again.”
“Yeah, me too,” I said under my breath and we got out and walked to the dark and empty house together.
Chapter 4- Richard
I phoned her, hoping she would remember who I was, not as the doctor that had asked her out on a whim, but as the gentleman that had been willing to help. I’d been ridiculous asking her out like that. Her dark eyes had drawn me like a magnet, it was like she had this burning flame inside of her that attracted me no matter how hard I fought it.
Her coffee-colored skin was smooth and I wondered what it would feel like, I had resisted the urge that night to touch her and eventually I’d failed. I’d wrapped my fingers around her wrist in the most appropriate way I knew how in public.
She’d felt like a live wire under my fingertips, a current so strong I was still charged with it.
I had just wanted to see her again. The emergency room wasn’t my usual shift. I was scared I’d never have the chance again.
She didn’t look like the private hospital type, anyway. She looked like the kind that could make do with very little, stretch the smallest piece of cloth into a blanket that covered the world. She had a resolve to her that I hadn’t seen in someone for a very long time. It wasn’t the kind of resolve I’d seen in Astrid, the surefooted strut that she would get what she wanted because she pouted enough for it.
It was the kind of strength that she would get back up no matter what tripped her in the first place. I had the idea she’d fallen a lot of times before. It was the kind of strength that said she would get whatever she wanted because she fought for it.
That kind of soldier, that pillar of strength, attracted me. It drew me because it made me feel like that was someone I had to spend more time with. Not the fickle whims of a woman who has been indulged too much in her life.
I sighed and looked in the mirror, straightening the tie before I swore and pulled it off. It wasn’t a date. I’d made that very clear to her. I couldn’t go dressed up like this.
I changed my tailored pants, swapped them for jeans, and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt, rolled up the sleeves. Better. I didn’t look like the wealthy doctor now. I looked like I could be a friend.
A friend. The way her skin had felt under my fingers, the way her body curved and dipped, made me want to be everything but friends.
I’d chosen a restaurant that was out of the way a bit, a place I didn’t usually go to. I didn’t want to run into someone I knew. I didn’t want them to frown down on her because she didn’t have milky white, porcelain skin and bullet proof make-up. I just wanted a night where we could both escape.
I was walking out the door when my phone rang.
“You didn’t give me a date for the lawyer,” she accused. “We have to discuss the settlement.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to think about the pending divorce and all the assets we would have to divide.
“Can we do this later? I’m not really in the mood.”
“Let me come over, we can have some wine and discuss it like friends. We can sort it out easily and by the time we see the lawyer it will be quick.”
“I’m going to decline,” I said flatly. “I’d prefer to talk at the lawyer’s office when we're both present.
”Come on, don’t be like that. Just because we’re separated doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.“
“No, you’re right. The affair you had since before our marriage, that’s the reason we can’t be friends.” I glanced at my wristwatch. I had to go. I was going to be late.
“Why did you talk to the tabloids?” I asked, suddenly remembering the article.
“They asked,” she said like she didn’t care.
“I don’t want our life on the internet, Astrid. You know that.”
“In this era, do we even have a choice?” she asked. There was no point arguing with her. I wondered why I still tried.
“I’m running late for something. I’ll have to talk to you some other time.”
“You never do shifts on a Thursday,” she said. “Are you going out?”
“It doesn’t matter where I’m going. I’m late.” I hung up on her because I didn’t want her asking more questions. I didn’t want her to pry and suggest coming over, or find out where I was going and hang around to make life miserable for me.
Because she had the ability to do that and she used it. Often.
I got in my Audi R8 and turned the ignition, backing out of the driveway. I stopped just before the gate, and shook my head. I pulled the car back into the garage and got out. If she couldn’t afford doctor’s bills it wouldn’t work to arrive in a car like this. Instead I phoned a taxi, and ten minutes later it arrived.
“Cisco’s, please,” I said and the taxi pulled off. I looked at my watch again – almost twenty minutes late already. Dammit.
When the taxi pulled up in front of Cisco’s, Nadine and Trevor sat outside on a bench. Nadine looked like she was nervous. When I peeled out of the taxi she looked visibly relieved. Trevor jumped up and ran to me, holding up the cast that was casting off a pale yellow gleam in the night air.
“Well, look at that,” I said, making a point of admiring the cast.
“I charged it over there,” he said, pointing to the halogen lamp that shone directly over the bench.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” I said to Nadine who had put her hands on Trevor’s shoulders. If it was just a coincidence or if it was to make her hands and body inaccessible for a handshake or a hug, I didn’t know. “You should have gone inside and gotten a table.”
“I wasn’t sure you were going to come,” she said, looking up and down the road. She wore a salmon-colored dress that reached halfway down her thighs and accentuated her full chest with a plain but flattering square neckline. Her lips were painted a glossy pink color to match, and she wore golden earrings and a locket around her neck. I wondered whose photos were in it. Her braided hair was pulled back at the top but spilled over her shoulder in little strings.
“Now why would you think that?” I asked. She shrugged and looked down at Trevor’s hair. It was curling around his ears.
“Shall we?” I asked and gestured for them to walk to the restaurant door. The seating hostess took us to a table in the back corner, close to the children’s play area so Trevor would know how to find us again.
“Tell me what you want to drink, quick,” Nadine said to him. He pointed on the kids’ menu and then he disappeared.
“He was so excited to come out,” she said, smiling after him. “We don’t get to come out often.” She looked up at me quickly. “I’m really busy.”
“I know how that gets. Sometimes I don’t leave my house for any other reason than work for weeks on end.”
She looked like she relaxed although she still wiggled the fork on the napkin in front of her back and forth.
I asked her about her work. She told me about her job, she’d been working at the bohemian-looking place off Maine that Astrid had turned her nose up at so many times. That was the only reason I knew it.
She told me about her studies, about her dreams to open her own place. Every time she finished telling me about something, she looked at me with a question in her eyes, like she expected me to frown on her life. All I could keep thinking was that someone like her had magically managed to beat the odds and kept doing it every day.
She asked me about work and other aspects of my life. I was careful to give her only the facts she needed to know. What she didn’t need to know was anything about Astrid, about the amount of money I earned, about the fact that I didn’t really need to work at all with my parents’ inheritance that became available to me when I’d turned eighteen.
She saw me as a person, not a checkbook. I wanted to keep it tha
t way.
When she laughed, it danced around the room like chimes on the wind. When I spoke about my life, her eyes became big and liquid, like she really cared, and when Trevor came to show me a sticker he’d gotten from the vending machine with the coins I gave him, she smiled from the inside, like sunrise, her eyes beaming so softly.
Her mouth was fascinating. Thick, full lips that caressed every word before it left her mouth, and her teeth were perfect. When she sipped her drink through the straw it made a perfect ‘O’ around it, and I could just imagine what it would be like to kiss her.
As if she read my mind she looked down and her cheeks flushed enough for me to imagine she blushed.
The time passed quickly. Trevor fell asleep on the seat next to her, and she tipped him so his head lay on her lap. We ordered coffee and when it arrived, she wrapped her long fingers around the cup. The steam curled out of it, wrapping around the silence between us.
“We have to get going,” she finally said. “I have to get this little guy in bed for school tomorrow.”
I got the check, and Nadine fished some bills out of her handbag.
“No, please. This is on me.”
“You paid for the hospital bill too,” she pointed out. “All of it. I phoned and asked.”
I shrugged, feeling stupid. Of course she would have noticed I’d paid it all if there were no down payments for her to make.
She stood up, looking frustrated, and scooped Trevor up in her arms. He mumbled something against her shoulder and she looked top-heavy carrying such a big child.
“Here, let me take him for you,” I offered, but she turned away from me.
“I’ve got it,” she said and marched to the door. Outside she walked towards a battered green Volvo and managed to get the back door open with one hand. She shoved an elevated seat to the foot well and got Trevor settled on the backseat with a jacket as a pillow.
“Why are you angry?” I asked. She slammed the door and turned to me, her black eyes hot and hostile. It made her beautiful. That flame inside of her had flared up to a raging furnace. Her movements, fluid and angry, were like poetry. When she spoke her voice was hard and the words sliced through me one by one.
“I don’t know what this is to you, a charity case of some kind to make you feel better about the money you have, or something like that. But I don’t need your help and I sure as shit don’t need your money. The meal was great. I’m grateful you helped out at the hospital, but I don’t need this. Trevor and I have been getting along fine without anyone taking pity on us.”
She turned and marched to the passenger door, but I grabbed her wrist.
“Nadine,” I said. She yanked her wrist out of my hand and glared at me. I held my hands up in defense.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do anything that made you feel uncomfortable. I just...“
“What? You just what? Thought you’d help the poor single mother because she obviously can’t do anything by herself? Did Dianne say something?”
“What? Dianne? Who the hell… You’ve gotten it all wrong, I just...“
“You’ll be better off without us dragging you down,” she sneered. She wouldn’t let me finish my sentences. All I wanted was to tell her that I helped her because I was attracted to her. That she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen on two legs, and I wanted to give her the world, and the money was the only way I knew how without sounding like a freak. Money was the only language I understood because I’d grown up with it as a way of showing love.
She stood in front of me spewing rage like a volcano, a Valkyrie. So I did the next best thing I could think of. I grabbed her face in my hands, and kissed her full on the mouth.
It was the last thing in the world she expected me to do. She froze under my hands for a moment, and I froze too. If this moment broke and ended in a fist in the mouth, so be it. But she softened in my hands, turning into butter, and her mouth moved against mine, kissing me back.
She sighed into my mouth, and I stepped closer, no longer holding her there, but just holding her.
It changed from warm and gentle to hot and urgent. Her body pressed against mine and I was aware of the swells of her breasts, pressing against my chest. My body responded to her, growing and hardening until I had to shift so it didn’t catch in my pants. My body trembled lightly all over, a shiver that felt like it was coming from her.
Her hand trailed down onto my chest, and I could feel the heat of it through my shirt, burning an imprint into my skin. Her breathing sped up, and the world fell away.
“Mom?” Trevor’s voice was muffled through the car window, but it was enough to break the spell and yank us back down to earth. I let her go and she stepped back like she was floating.
“We’re going to leave now, honey,” she said, turning her face toward the car but her eyes were still locked with mine.
“That’s why,” I said with a hoarse voice. She nodded without saying anything and I opened the car door for her.
“Will you let me know when you’re home safe?” I asked leaning down by the open car window.
“I will,” she said, and smiled. When she drove off, I watched until her red taillights disappeared around the turn. I sighed. It was happening again. I was falling for a woman. I hoped that this time I wasn’t sacrificing so much of myself, because God knew that I couldn’t help it.
Not with her.
Chapter 5 - Nadine
The salon was busy on Friday morning when I walked in after dropping Trevor off at the preschool. Sonya pulled up her eyebrows at me and mouthed something to me in the mirror over her client’s head but I didn’t catch it. When I walked to the staff room, Nancy was sitting in one of the armchairs going through a manila file.
My employee file.
“Nancy, it’s nice to see you,” I said even though it really wasn’t. She was the owner of the salon and came in once a month if we were lucky. The rest of the time she spoke to the manager over the phone and we took orders from her.
“You’re late,” she said, turning her wrist so she could see the face of her watch.
“I had to drop Trevor off. My first client isn’t until ten,” I said.
“In your contract it clearly states you have to be here before 8:30. I’m assuming you were aware of this seeing that it’s your signature I see here. You read it before you signed it, right?”
An iron fist clutched a knot of nerves in my stomach. I had the feeling something wasn’t right.
“I heard from Sonya you’ve been coming in late more often,” she said.
“I check with Marlene...“
“Who didn’t clear it with me. That counts as late, Miss Lewis.”
I sighed shakily.
“It won’t happen again,” I said. I could get Trevor to school earlier. He wouldn’t be the only one, there was one other kid that got dropped off long before the mad rush. It would just mean a little less time together. I could make up for that somehow.
“I also see you took some time off on Tuesday afternoon. You left the salon at three?”
I nodded slowly. “I had to rush to the hospital...“
“Yes, Sonya was doing your shift when I came in.”
Nancy never came in during the week. I frowned and sank down in another armchair. The food in my bag could wait, I didn’t want to be rude and pack it in the fridge like I was at home here. I could never feel at home when Nancy was in the room.
“Trevor broke his arm. My babysitter had to get him to the hospital and she has no legal right to...“
“Look, Nadine…” Nancy clicked her pen in and out while she spoke. It was annoying and nerve-wracking at the same time. “I get that your situation at home isn’t exactly favorable. But I’m trying to run a business here. I believe I gave you enough time to sort out your personal life without it interfering with your work, but it looks like I was wrong.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, even though I knew what she was saying.
“I'm le
tting you go. I’m sorry. It’s just not working out and I’m trying to lock down more on the girls. I can’t be strict with them if I allow you graces I don’t allow them. And I can’t be slack with everyone, I wouldn’t get anywhere.”
“Do I work for the notice month?” I asked because even though I’d read the contract, no one really paid attention to the clause about losing the job.
“I’ll pay you for the month, but I’d like you to leave right away. I’ll get someone else to cover your appointments.”
She got up and made a note on her papers before she left the staff room. I stood in the wake of destruction, trying to catch my breath.
Ten minutes later, Sonya came in.
“My client’s color needs to set. What did she say?”
I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, pushed down the lump in my throat, ignored the burning behind my eyes.
“She fired me,” I said flatly.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” Sonya said, clasping her hands across her mouth. “If I’d know what she was after… but you know how sneaky she gets with her questions. Before I knew it, she had all the answers out of me and I thought she was talking about my overtime.”
“It’s fine,” I said, turning my back on Sonya because my eyes were filling up with tears despite my efforts, and I didn’t want to show her that, even though she’d betrayed me and she deserved to feel guilty as hell.
I left the salon with my bag slung over my shoulder, and I didn’t look back to the place where I’d dedicated four years of my time.
What would I do now? Where would I get money to pay for Trevor’s school and gas and food? Nancy wouldn’t give me a good reference letter. She was the type that believed the next employer ought to know about their prospective employee’s flaws. She was the type that would be so brutally honest it would just sound like she hated me.
I drove to a park and chose a parking space that overlooked the pond. To my side, children were playing on the swings, and there were pedal boats on the water. I took out the food I’d made for lunch and took a bite, but it turned to sand in my mouth.