by Cat Mann
Chapter 12
Half Truth
I loved living with Ari. He is a crazy music fan and has wireless Bluetooth speakers throughout our entire home. Every morning, he puts a different song on and we dance in the bathroom together while we brush our teeth. In the morning of Ari’s first day back to baio, he could tell I was dreading our separation. He turned on Brad Sucks and turned up “Making Me Nervous.”
“Here we go,” he said, quoting the first line of the song. Then he turned our bathroom into a private dance club. He and I danced together and I giggled at how silly we probably looked. Ari’s ploy to make me smile had worked. Dressed in his here-I-am-world suit and all ready for work, the dance was even funnier – the serious professional acting like a teenager. When the song was over, he grabbed his cell off the bathroom sink and laced his fingers together behind the small of my back.
“If you need me for anything, anything at all, please, please call me, Ava. Call my cell, call my office, call my assistant. Please.”
“I will. But I won’t need to; I’m fine,” I nodded reassuringly.
Ari ran his thumb across my lips.
“I’ll check in on you in a couple of hours. My mom is home next door if you … ”
“Ari,” I smiled, “I am fine. Go! You are going to be late!”
“OK, love you.”
I bit at the inside of my lip.
“Love you, too … oh, wait! Can you give something to Margaux for me?” I rushed to our study and grabbed a big, fat manila envelope that was stuffed to the brim with cash.
“Yeah sure, what is it?”
“Money. I finally arranged to buy my car back; I am going to have Rory drive it home for me this weekend,” I smiled.
“Ava, you bought a car! Why don’t you tell me these things?” Ari looked angry.
My smile slid right off my face.
“I did not buy a car. I bought my old car back and I guess I just forgot to mention it. I made the deal with Margaux right before our trip to Greece and it just slipped my mind.”
Ari sighed, “I will cancel the car I ordered for you then.” He took the envelope; he gave me another kiss goodbye, urged me to call him, and then closed the door.
I waited for a moment in our quiet house. The garage door creaked shut. I closed my eyes and listened to the pings of wind-tossed sand hit our windows. I listened to the icemaker churn and dump fresh ice in the freezer bin. I swallowed with great effort, the uneasiness I felt about being alone constricting my throat, and then jumped out of my skin when the dryer buzzer sounded. I ran out the back door, onto the patio and across the deck to the pool house.
“Hi.”
“Bonjour,” August mumbled, yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “What’s up?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Nothing … what are you doing?”
August looked at me unsmiling.
“Well, I was sleeping until you pounded on my door and woke me up … so now I am standing here in my boxers waiting for you to tell me whatever the hell it is you need to tell me at eight in the morning.”
“Right. Sorry. Just making sure you have everything you need, or whatever.”
August opened the pool house door all the way and gestured for me to enter. He walked back to the bedroom and came back out a few minutes later wearing a pair of charcoal dress pants and buttoning up a white dress shirt. He was due to start his first day of work at nine. I was seated on the couch staring down at my knotted fingers.
“Do you have something on your mind, Ava?”
I let out a long exhale between my pursed lips.
“I have a lot on my mind.” I stood up to leave. “I’m sorry I woke you, Aug. Have a nice first day of work.”
“Nuh-uh. No way. I’m up now; you’re stuck with me. Sit.”
My leg was shaking and bouncing around. I unlaced my fingers and began to chew on my thumbnail. August took my hand away from my mouth; he set it calmly down on my leg and steadied me.
“What did that bastard do to you, Ava?”
August was referring to No. 6.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I know you don’t. Ari said you keep saying that you don’t want to talk about your kidnapping or any of your experiences, but I don’t think your best interest is a matter of want at this point. I think it is a matter of need. Whether you want to discuss your issues or not is irrelevant; you need to talk about them. You cannot keep bottling these issues up inside, Ava.”
I pretended to pick pieces of lint off my shirt as August spoke.
“Do you have any good books to read?” I asked, when his lecture was finally done.
August rolled his eyes at me and shook his head incredulously as he walked over to an unpacked box he had sitting on the floor. He pulled out Pride and Prejudice.
“I’ve already read that one,” I moped.
August threw it at me.
“Encore! Read it again.”
I took the book and went back into the house. I walked through the empty kitchen, passed the dining room and wandered through the living room. Aimlessly, I visited every part of our house until I found myself standing in front of our bed. I tossed the borrowed book on a pillow and pulled back the blankets on Ari’s side of the bed. I coiled up in a small ball and wept until my phone rang a couple of hours later.
“Hi,” Ari’s voice was so soothing.
“Hi.”
“You doing alright?”
“Yeah.”
“August called me; he said you looked upset this morning.”
“Mmm…”
“What are you doing right now, Ava?”
I picked up the Jane Austen novel and flipped to the cover page.
“Reading.”
“Oh? How’s your day?”
“I miss you. Can you find a way to disable the dryer buzzer?”
Ari chuckled into the phone. “I miss you, too. I’ll call you this afternoon. Consider the dryer buzzer as good as gone.”
“Bye.”
I tossed the book aside, curled back up in my little ball under the mass of warm blankets and pillows and continued my silent sobs.