The Brevity of Roses

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  Seven hours and a good quantity of Scotch later, he lay in an Oregon hotel hoping to get a few hours sleep. He woke at a little past three in the morning. He took a bottle of water from the mini-bar. He checked his phone for messages. He sat on the edge of the bed staring at Renee’s name in his cell phone. She had not offered it, but while he had her phone in hand, he memorized it and added the entry to his as soon as she left the house. Maybe he should call her—not right now, of course—or maybe he should send a text message. What would he say? Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry, I ever met you. Sorry, I asked you about your family. Sorry, I made love to you? He was, in fact, not sorry for any of those things. His only regret was that she hated him now.

  Jalal leapt to his feet as though the mixture of Scotch and stress and too little sleep had produced a sudden jolt of electricity. “Fuck!” How could he have left her there, left her alone? He should have insisted she come with him. No. Canceled the trip is what he should have done. How could he blame her for getting angry? He was nothing but an egocentric ass.

  With sleep no longer an option, he showered, gathered his things, and was on the road headed home before the sky began to pale.

  The restaurant was still full of lunch customers when Jalal shoved open the door. He stepped inside and scanned the room for Renee. His heart sank.

  Jennie called to him from behind the counter, “It’s about time you got here.”

  Not caring that heads had turned his way, he swam upstream through a family trying to exit. “Where is she?” Before Jennie could answer, Renee came through the kitchen doors. If she was happy to see him, she gave no sign of it. He made it over to her in two strides. “Renee, I am sorry—”

  “Sit down. I’m working.” She made a move to pass him.

  “But—”

  She turned on him, eyes flashing. “Not here. Not now.” She added a stack of napkins to her tray and went back to serving her customers.

  After a second, Jalal realized his mouth hung open and snapped it shut. When he glanced at Jennie, her eyes slid away. He sank down on a stool at the end of the counter. Without a word, Jennie set a cup of coffee in front of him and returned a minute later with a slice of lemon meringue pie. “Just so you know,” she said, “Renee’s downright chipper compared to how she came in here yesterday.”

  He hung his head. Jennie laid her hand on his forearm. “Just take her tongue lashing and count your blessings, hon. It’ll work itself out.” When he looked up, she smiled. “But dear God, think before you speak next time.” She gave his arm a pat and swung out from behind the counter with a fresh pot of coffee in hand.

  While he nibbled at the pie, he ran over in his mind what Renee might have told Jennie. What had he said without thinking? He knew what he had done without thinking and probably, it shamed him to imagine, so did Jennie now. But what had he said?

  Renee passed by him time after time, but she said nothing and if she cast him a glance, he never caught it. At one point, fed up, he rose to leave, but Jennie flashed him a look that glued him back to his seat. Most of the tables were empty by two o’clock. Renee cleared one more and carried the things into the kitchen. She came out a few minutes later with two sandwiches and sat down beside him. She pushed one plate in front of him.

  “No thank you,” he said.

  “Eat!” she told him and then asked Jennie for a Coke.

  He ate in silence while the two women chatted about some of the customers and where Don and Eduardo had disappeared to and whether Jennie should write a recipe book and sell it in the restaurant. He had no clue how this day would end. His mind drifted. Not until Renee pulled on his arm did he realize the women had quit talking and Renee stood, ready to leave.

  “Drive me home,” she said when they were outside, “I walked here today.”

  “Can I talk to you now?” he asked as he pulled the car into traffic. She was turned away, staring out the window, and did not answer. He thought it best not to repeat the question.

  Finally, she looked at him. “Why did you come back?”

  “What?”

  She sighed, exasperated. “Today, Jalal. You’re supposed to be in Seattle. Why did you come back today?”

  “I told my family I would be there later.”

  “Because …”

  “Because I had to talk to you. To apologize. Because I realized … what I had done.”

  “You did? You do?”

  Because of the surprise in her voice, he ridiculed himself. “It only took me twelve hours.” He parked across the street from her apartment. This time, she opened her own car door and led the way up the stairs. “Make yourself at home,” she said as they entered. “I’m taking a shower.”

  Every muscle in his body felt clenched. He could use a drink, but that would probably be another screw up on his record. He sat on the sofa, picked up the remote and turned the TV on. A minute later, he turned it off. He looked around at the bare walls. There was really nothing personal to show she lived there. He jolted upright and scanned the room for evidence she was packing to move, but found none. The shelf under the coffee table caught his eye when he sat back. On it lay a stack of spiral notebooks. He stared at them for two, three minutes before he gave in to curiosity and reached for the top one. Leafing through, he saw Renee had written letters.

  August 10, 2006

  Dear Mom,

  Today’s my 21st birthday. Yay!!! Who gives a fuck, huh?

  He closed the book and slipped it back under the table. Then, he walked across the room to look out the door, as if that would help distance himself from what he had read. The notebooks were what? Renee’s journals? Some kind of therapy? Writing letters to her dead mother, what was that? He was still standing at the door, when she came into the room.

  She sat down on the end of the sofa. “Okay. You have something to say to me?”

  For a moment, he only stared, fearing she had spied on him, seen him reading her private thoughts. Then he remembered why he was there. Relieved he had not been caught in another sin, he crossed the room and took a seat on the other end of the sofa. Immediately, he stood again, walked a few feet away, and turned to face her. “I apologize for leaving you alone yesterday. I should have insisted you come with me … or not left at all.”

  First, she frowned, then disbelief registered.

  Confused by her reaction, he began to babble. “I know I was way out of line yesterday, and you had every right to get angry. You only wanted to be comforted, but I took advantage of—”

  “That’s what you think this is about?”

  “Well, I … yes.”

  Shaking her head, Renee looked toward the ceiling. “God. That’s almost funny.”

  But she neither laughed, nor smiled, nor said anything more. She only leveled a gaze at him for so long he thought she must be waiting for some response. Just as he opened his mouth, she spoke again.

  “Jalal, just from pure animal attraction, the first time I saw you I thought about what it would be like to sleep with you. And after I got to know you … well, I wanted you even more. Don’t you know that? I’ve been waiting for you to make a move. You didn’t take ‘advantage’ of me.”

  “Then, why were you angry? Why are you angry?”

  She seemed to shrink before his eyes, becoming fragile. Her eyes closed, and for a moment, as she took short, rapid breaths, he feared she thought he was too stupid to deserve an answer. When she opened her eyes, he saw that anger was not the emotion she had been trying to control.

  “You called me Meredith.” Her voice quavered. “You were lying in bed with me—with me—but you were thinking of her.”

  Jalal could do nothing but stare. Renee was wrong. He could not possibly have called her by Meredith’s name. But why would she lie? He shook his head. “I was not. I swear, I was not thinking of her.”

  She waved away his words along with her emotion. “Riiight. Even though you ‘think of her a thousand times a day’?” Not waiting for an answer, Renee stood and walked
to the kitchen area. “I’m having a Coke, want one?”

  By the time he nodded, she was already holding the can out to him. He stepped forward to take it and for a moment, after she settled back on the sofa, he stood like a gawky teen on his first date, not sure what to do next.

  Renee ticked her head toward the other end of the sofa. “Sit,” she ordered. “I have something to say.”

  So sure what she had to say would make it clear he was no longer welcome there, Jalal debated whether it was worth the effort to take the two steps to the sofa. As a compromise, he sat on the edge of the cushion.

  “It’s like this,” she said, “I have a history of hooking up with the wrong guys. No matter how hot, how funny, how smart they seemed to be in the beginning, they all turned out to be losers. So, I started to question what that made me, you know? And I didn’t want to own that. I can’t be a loser, Jalal. I can’t. Not … not after all I’ve lived through.” She looked away, blinking, her breathing fast and shallow.

  He opened his soda, and took a long drink to give her time.

  “I have to be a survivor,” she said. “I am a survivor.” Renee frowned at the can of Coke in her hand, as though surprised to find it there, and leaned forward to set it on the coffee table. She sat back and turned sideways, tucking her legs up under her. She pulled at a loose thread on the sofa. “I’m not going to waste any more time on losers.”

  “I am not a loser, Renee.” He tried to read her face, but she gave him nothing. He looked down at his hands. “I am asking for another chance to prove that.”

  “I seem to remember you standing in this room once before asking for one last chance.”

  In spite of the tension, he had to suppress a smile. Azadeh had nothing on Renee when it came to putting the screws on him. “All right, another last chance.” Making him wait, Renee picked at the thread until every muscle in his body thrummed with the urge to slap her hand away from it.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, finally, “while you’re in Seattle.”

  Fifteen

  ZIBA WAS THE FIRST TO SPOT him when he walked in the door. “Jalal’s here,” she called out. At her announcement, other members of his family seemed to materialize out of nowhere and crowd into the living room. His mother hurried in from the kitchen wagging a finger at him. “First, you were going to be here yesterday, then, you change it to tomorrow, and now, you come today.”

  Jalal breathed in her familiar scent of spice and perfume as he hugged her. “Yes, Maman, it is nice to see you too.”

  “You!” she said, patting his cheek. “Always the teaser. You know I am happy to see you anytime, azizam , the sooner, the better. Come. All the men are out back by the barbeque.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the kitchen, calling out orders as she approached, “Shadi, pour your brother some wine! Goli, fix your brother a plate! Ashley, take your uncle’s bag upstairs.”

  The next few hours were wonderfully chaotic in the Vaziri family style. Conversation bubbled and rippled and gushed through a never ending parade of food and drink while forty-two adults and children shuffled from room to room and in and out the doors. The younger men cajoled Jalal and Ziba’s husband, Brett, into playing a haphazard soccer match on the sloping side yard—and the two of them held their own. After that, Jalal’s nieces persuaded him to join them for a take-no-prisoners game of UNO—the girls slaughtered him.

  He kept a smile on his face through it all. The busier he stayed, the less often he thought of Renee. At odd moments, the weight of the phone in his pocket reminded him the sound of her voice was only seconds away. Impatience honed him to sharp edges and then a joke, or hug, or shared memory from a family member smoothed him again.

  As the night deepened, he sat talking in a quiet corner of the patio with his father and brothers. The air, heavy with scents of jasmine, cigarette smoke, and 18-year-old-Scotch, combined with too much food and too little sleep made Jalal long for a sign Baba would soon dismiss everyone by heading off to bed. Farhad and Navid argued, but he had let his mind drift from the topic and was only vaguely aware when Farhad turned to him.

  “So, Jalal, we all know Jason has asked you to defend his decision.”

  Jalal snapped alert. He had hoped they could have this discussion in private.

  “And you not even a father,” said Navid, “what can you know about it, anyway?”

  “I am a son,” said Jalal.

  Navid’s lips thinned to a slash. A disobedient son was the implication, but Navid was cheated out of saying that because—as far as the family knew—Jalal’s decision to choose his own career was still working out well.

  “Jason wants to delay college for a whole year. You agree with this?” asked Farhad. “You think he will go back to school?”

  “He says—”

  “I know what he says, but do you believe he will do it?”

  Jalal glanced around the table, sizing up the situation. It was two against one, as it had always been with his brothers, but where did his father stand? Jalal took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Jason is an intelligent, thoughtful young man, and in the end I believe he will do what is best for him.”

  Navid spewed smoke from the corner of his mouth. “What sense does that make, when Farhad already knows what is best for his son?”

  “In the end, you say?” Farhad paused to light another cigarette. “After he has wasted a year or two—or ten—of his life?”

  The clink of ice cubes filled the silence as Jalal took a drink, buying him time to decide whether he should give up now, or try harder to honor his promise to his nephew. Before he could do either, Baba cleared his throat and spoke.

  “Fathers,” he said, “do not always know what is best for their sons.”

  In unison, the three brothers turned their heads toward him, but their father said no more. There was no need to. The matter had been decided. Farhad would allow Jason to make his own plans. Farhad and Navid missed only a beat or two before starting a new topic of conversation. The ache in Jalal’s throat silenced him. For the first time, he felt equal to his brothers. He was one of the men. Across the table, he met his father’s eyes and returned his smile.

  The sun’s heat on his face woke Jalal. For a second, he thought he had fallen asleep sitting in his garden, and then he opened his eyes. One glimpse of Maman’s lavish decorating style re-oriented him. He glanced at the bedside clock and lay there calculating how many hours he had slept. Five. Not bad. Considering.

  Muffled voices drifted up from downstairs, more than just two, which meant today’s gathering had begun. He groaned as he got up and headed to the shower. Yesterday’s soccer game had worked muscles not used in running—lateral motion—and he stood under the hot water for a long time to ease them. His mind wandered the path of least resistance. What would Renee be doing now? Was she walking along his beach? Was she thinking of him?

  Today, his mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law would prepare another mountain of food, which they would serve nearly non-stop as family and friends again filled the house and yards. The day would not exactly duplicate yesterday. Later this afternoon, they would all pack into as many vehicles as it took to transport them to Gas Works Park. His family never missed the Fourth of July fireworks.

  What would Renee do tonight? A chill traced his spine despite the heat of the shower. She might not be alone. Between her two jobs, she had probably met every man in town by now. What if another man in her life was the real reason she refused to come to Seattle with him? He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. Dripping water all the way, he stepped back into the bedroom and grabbed his phone. He let it ring until Renee’s voice message started before ending the call. On one level, he registered the sounds of more family arriving downstairs, but he stood immobile, staring at nothing. His thoughts were in Bahia de Sueños.

  Shadi and Ziba, interrupting the conversation, shooed their husbands away from the table and took their vacated chairs.

  “What has happened to you in
the last few months?” asked Ziba.

  Jalal arched a brow.

  “You look happier,” said Shadi, “we were just talking with Goli about it. When you came up for Maman’s birthday, you looked very … strained. We were worried about you.”

  He looked across the yard to where Goli handed off a platter of kebab to one of her daughters before heading their way. At the table, she looked at Shadi. “Did you ask him?”

  “Ask me what?”

  Goli dropped into the chair opposite Jalal and leaned across the table, her voice conspiratorial. “Is there a new woman in your life?”

  “No!”

  The three women looked at each other.

  “Why do you say it like that?” asked Goli. “Like we accused you of doing something wrong?”

  “He’s lying,” said Shadi. “Why didn’t you bring the mystery woman with you, Jalal?”

  Azadeh! She stood on the other side of the yard with her back to him. He glared at her anyway. “Despite what Azadeh thinks, she is wrong.”

  “Azadeh?” said Ziba.

  “Aza has met this woman?” asked Goli.

  “Does it ever matter what I say to you women?” When another look passed between his sisters, he jumped to his feet. “I will not have this ridiculous conversation with you!” He fled into the crowd that was his family.

  Within minutes, Azadeh was at his side. She smacked his shoulder. “I never mentioned Renee to them,” she said. “Not even after you called and said you’d be a day late because you were going back for her. And—if you hadn’t noticed—I haven’t even asked you what happened to that plan.”

  He narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at her. “You didn’t tell anyone? Not even Maman?”