Jamie calmly asks, “Male or female?”
“Female! Geez!”
“I’m just trying to get my facts straight, don’t get all excited.”
“Excuse me, but why don’t you seem more disturbed? He pays for sex.”
“Because no man in the history of the world has ever done that.”
Exasperated, I say, “Jamie, come on!”
“Would it shock you to know I’ve done the same?”
My brows shoot so far up my forehead they almost fly off. “Yes, as a matter of fact it would. When? More importantly, why?”
There’s a shrug in his voice. “Because I was horny, and lonely, and I could.”
I decide not to ask for details. “I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. The whole thing seems so seedy and pathetic to me.”
“Well, you’re not a man.”
I groan. “That’s such a sexist statement.”
“When did you become so judgmental, anyway?”
“Hello, it’s illegal? And dangerous? And totally gross?”
“How would you know it’s gross? Maybe it’s the hottest sex you’ll ever have, but you’re so busy looking down your nose at it, you’ll never know.”
My eyes bug out. “You’re advocating your little sister hire a gigolo to get some firsthand experience in the area, is that it?”
He goes all practical on me. “Well, if you do, I know this guy in LA—”
“Please stop talking now.”
“Look, I admit it’s . . . not mainstream.”
Suddenly, I’m angry. “No, Jamie, that’s not it at all. This has nothing to do with me being narrow-minded or judgmental. It’s wrong. I’m sorry if it makes me sound like a church lady, but screwing someone for money is wrong.”
“Why aren’t you mad at the prostitutes, then? They’re the ones taking his money. If there were no prostitutes, men couldn’t visit them.”
I almost curse at him. “You’re such a lawyer.”
He shoots right back, “And you’re too quick to point fingers. Nothing in this world is black or white. Nothing. I don’t know much about this A.J. of yours, but if he only can be with a woman who he pays, there’s something to that. And besides, if that’s really the case, this entire conversation is moot.” He adds, “Unless you’re willing to send him an invoice, that is.”
I mutter, “I’m sure they get paid up front. You don’t want that much money in receivables.”
“Really?” He sounds interested. “How much are we talkin’? Two, three grand?”
“Try five.”
He whistles. “Damn. And I thought Dad charged a lot per hour. He’d freak out if he knew a hooker had thirty-five hundred bucks on his going hourly rate.”
It’s my turn to be shocked. “Dad charges his clients fifteen hundred dollars per hour?”
Jamie laughs. “Only for old clients. For new ones he charges twenty-five hundred.”
Holy guacamole. I honestly had no idea. “That doesn’t even seem like it should be legal!”
His voice turns wry. “You weren’t complaining when it was paying to put you through USC. Or padding your trust fund. Or financing that graduation trip you took to Paris with all your girlfriends—”
“Point made. No need to rub it in.”
“All right. I know I’m being a little hard on you, but I just want you to keep an open mind. At the very least . . . try to have compassion. You never know what it’s like to be someone else until you’ve lived what he’s lived.”
“Walk a mile in his shoes, that whole bit?”
“Exactly. And don’t sound so snarky, it’s true.”
Annoyed with Jamie, with the conversation, with life in general, I stand and go to the living room window. Outside it’s growing dark. Cars flash by with their headlights on, in traffic even at this hour, on the weekend. The streetlights are winking on.
“When will you be in LA again?”
“I don’t know. I’m giving Mom and Dad a little room to breathe after your dramatic announcement at dinner. I think they might finally be realizing their son is never going to marry Bunny Anderson’s very homely, very rich daughter.”
“Are you angry with me for that?”
“Never. I’ve never hidden who or what I am, they’ve just chosen not to see me. But you always have, and you’ve always accepted me just as I am. I love you for that, bug.”
I’m touched. We don’t often say these things to each other. Stiff upper lip and all that. “I love you, too, Jamie.”
“Gotta go. Call me if you need any more man advice.”
I say wryly, “Or if I need the number of that gigolo.”
His laugh is loud. “Right. And bug?”
“Yeah?”
There’s a pause. “It doesn’t always have to look good on paper.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs. “Only that you can’t find love on a checklist of must-haves. You know: A good education; A stable, upwardly progressive career; A nice car; Good hair. It’s never that easy. Sometimes what looks like perfection is nothing more than a chocolate-dipped turd. And sometimes what you find in the gutter covered in mud that looks like a turd is really a diamond. A big old, chunky diamond that some other fool threw out because she couldn’t see that all it needed was a little TLC to make it shine.”
With a soft click, the line goes dead.
I lower the phone to my side. My breath catches; across the street, under the glow of a streetlamp, a man stands staring up at my window.
As he turns and walks away with a lowered head, he tightens the drawstring on his hoodie.
For two weeks, I hear nothing from either A.J. or Eric. I work, I hang out with the girls, I do my thing, trying not to obsess. I fail spectacularly at not obsessing. Those two weeks contain the longest nights I’ve ever spent. I could draw every crack and miniscule bump in my bedroom ceiling from memory.
Then one crisp morning I walk out to my car on my way to work, and someone has left something on my windshield, resting against the wiper.
It’s an origami bird, crafted from fine, pale blue linen paper.
I hold it in my hand, inspecting it. I remember making origami forms when I was a kid. I had a teacher, originally from Japan, who taught a class on the ancient art of paper sculpture. I could only ever make a crane, the simplest of beginner folds aside from a paper airplane.
This bird is no simple crane. What I’m holding in my hand is a work of art.
It’s three-dimensional, with an elegant body, layers of delicate feathers, even tiny feet. Whoever made it took painstaking care. I see no mistaken folds, no telltale creases where one was begun only to be abandoned for another, no blemishes on the paper at all.
It’s perfect.
I look up and around, hoping to find a clue as to who might have left it, but there’s no one looking back at me, just cars whizzing by and an old man walking his chubby beagle across the street.
I unlock the car and carefully set the beautiful paper bird on the passenger seat. On the drive to work, I glance at it frequently, half expecting it to open its wings and take flight.
The next week, there’s another bird on my windshield.
This one is even more elaborate than the first. It’s made of foil-backed paper, a rich violet on one side and reflective hot pink on the other, so the folds reveal layer over layer of lush color. Enraptured, I stare at it. I know for certain now the first wasn’t some kind of fluke.
These beautiful birds are meant for me.
I try to picture the hands that made such intricate, delicate things. I can only envision a woman’s hands, fine boned and elegant, deft and precise. Yet I know of no one, male or female, capable of such eccentric, whimsical artistry.
After the third week, and the third bird—this one an incredible canary yellow with black-and-white striped wings—I clear a shelf on the bookcase in my bedroom, and start a collection.
I also start trying to catch whoever is leaving them for me.
My surveillance fails utterly. The fourth bird appears on the windshield of my car when I take a two-minute bathroom break. The fifth, when I go to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.
Which can only mean one thing.
I’m being watched.
Yet I see no one. I see nothing out of the ordinary. I see normal life happening on the street below: cars, joggers, mothers with baby carriages, people on bikes.
I know who I want it to be. But whoever it is doesn’t wish to be seen, so he isn’t.
I don’t tell anyone about the birds, not even Kat or Grace. They’re my little secret, a locked treasure chest hidden away in my brain that only I can open and play with. Kat had said she learned that people keep secrets for all sorts of reasons: sad, selfish, dangerous. I don’t know about sad or selfish, but this little secret of mine definitely feels dangerous, as if by the mere act of not sharing with my best friends, I’ve taken the first step down a dark, uncharted road.
I don’t care. I’m no longer afraid of the dark.
I’ve discovered an extraordinary creature who lives there.
“What’ll it be today?”
“I need a triple espresso, a Venti chai latte, a Tall Americano, and . . .” I eyeball the refrigerated display in front of the counter. “Ooh! One of those lemon bar thingies. The big one on the end.”
The barista smiles at me. “You and your lemon bars. You should try our new double chocolate chunk brownie, they’re really popular.”
I shrug, handing over a twenty. “I’m more of a sour girl than a sweet.”
“No way, Chloe, you’re totally sweet.” He smiles wider, flirting.
I shake my head and walk to the end of the counter to await my order.
I’ve been coming to this Starbucks nearly every day since I opened Fleuret, and all the baristas know me by name. Pathetic, I know, but people in the flower business are total caffeine addicts. You would be too if you had to go to work in the dark every morning, then stand on your feet for twelve hours, wielding a wickedly sharp design knife that you’d cut yourself with every so often. As in, five times a day. Some of the junior designers use clippers, but a knife is a much faster tool to arrange with, so that’s what I use.
Hence the sorry state of my hands. Today, for example, I have a Band-Aid wrapped around the tip of my left thumb, a slice on the middle finger of my right hand that isn’t healing as well as it should be because of the dirt lodged in it, nicks on both my pinkies, and the usual calluses galore on my palms. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that I’ll never be a hand model.
I pick up the Times and browse the front page while I wait, until I become aware that someone stands silently brooding a few feet away to my left. Brooding, and staring right at me.
When I lift my head, I’m looking at Eric.
He’s in uniform. His eyes are bloodshot, his shirt is wrinkled, and he’s unshaven. He looks like he’s just woken up from a three-week bender.
My heart thumping, I set the paper back on its rack. “Eric . . . hi.”
Unsmiling, he nods slowly. “Chloe.”
“How are you?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Finally he says, “I’ve been better.”
I can see that. At the same time I realize I don’t like it, that I don’t want him to suffer for any reason, especially if it’s on my account, he says quietly, “Not that it’s your concern.”
That stings. In fact, it hurts. He must see it on my face, because he steps closer, lifting a hand as if to touch me. He thinks better of it and lets it fall to his waist.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk.”
I look away. “Okay.” What does he want me to say?
After a moment, he wordlessly takes my arm. He gently steers me through the morning crowd into the back hallway near the bathrooms. I let him, wondering if I’ve thrown away a perfectly good man for a long shot bet on a dark horse that probably won’t pay off anyway.
We stop beside the payphone. He keeps his hand on my arm.
“Look at me.”
I do. He’s solemn, but not angry. I have to stop myself from brushing the hair off his forehead that’s about to fall into his eyes.
“I mean it, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just . . . you can’t know what that felt like for me.”
But I can imagine. It’s not a pretty picture. My voice small, I say, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else I can say. It was a terrible mistake, one I wish I could undo. I never intended to do that. I never meant to hurt you. I really, really apologize.”
I flounder for anything else to say. He lets me writhe in agonizing silence for a while, watching me squirm. He removes his hand from my arm, and lowers it to casually rest on the butt of his sidearm. I find the simple move incredibly menacing.
Then he asks abruptly, “Did you sleep with him while we were together?”
My head rears back. “No!”
I can tell he believes me. His eyes glow with intensity. He moves closer. “You just fooled around with him then?”
My face flushes with heat. I have to work to keep my voice down. “No, Eric. I didn’t fool around with him. I never cheated on you. I’ve never even kissed him.”
Surprise registers on his face. “You’re not with him now?”
I shake my head.
He stares at me intently. “Let me make sure I’m getting this right. You’re not together with him, you never fooled around with him while you were with me, and you never even kissed him.”
“That’s right.”
His jaw works. “So you just wanted to screw him.”
The acid in his voice makes me feel as if I’ve been slapped. “Eric!”
“You were just thinking of screwing him, while my hands and mouth were all over you.”
Believing I deserve to endure this—at least for a while longer—I stand glaring at him silently, my cheeks as red as the scarlet letter I imagine sewn on to my shirt.
“I think I deserve an honest answer, Chloe.”
Oh, really? Because I think you deserve a kick in the shin. “The answer is no. I wasn’t thinking of him that night. I don’t know what happened.” He looks relieved, for all of two seconds, until I speak again. “But if you want total honesty, which is what I’ve always given you, then yes. I’m attracted to him.”
He pales, then reddens. His lips thin to a line.
“But I never would’ve acted on it. I made a stupid mistake that night, and believe me, I regret it. I’ve been kicking myself over it for a month. But you didn’t give me the chance to explain, or make it up to you, which I think at the very least I deserved, seeing as how we were together for six months before that happened. You just completely froze me out. And if the situation were reversed, maybe I would have done the same thing as you and walked away, but at least I would’ve let you say your piece before I did.”
I fold my arms protectively across my chest, and stare in misery at my feet. I should walk away. Part of me wants to. Another part of me is glad I finally got to apologize, because what I did to Eric is one of the lowest things I’ve ever done.
No matter what Grace says.
“Hey.”
The softness in Eric’s voice makes me glance up. He seems taller than I remember. Maybe it’s because I’m slumped over so far in shame.
He looks away, then back at me, and I can tell he’s having a hard time deciding what to say. I don’t let him off the hook. I just stare at him, waiting, trying to ignore the old Vietnamese lady sitting at a table near the end of the hall, openly eavesdropping.
He blows out a s
hort breath. “I, uh . . . you’re right. I kind of freaked out.”
When I give him the stink eye, he relents. “Okay, I really freaked out. I’ve never felt that way before. I lost my mind. I just wanted to break something.”
I refrain from reminding him he did break something: my favorite vase. He also put a sizeable dent in my self-respect, not to mention the living room wall. I know it was a crap situation, but in retrospect I think he might have handled it with a little more maturity. Or at least a little less Raging Bull.
His voice grows even softer. “Especially after what I’d told you, not even two minutes before.”
I love you. It’s amazing how three such small words, when spoken together, can either take you to heaven or shoot you in the hooha with a high-caliber rifle.
“I know,” I whisper. “If I could take it back, I would.”
Watching his reaction to my words, the way his face softens, the vulnerability in his eyes, I’m having a ton of crazy mixed emotions. I still have feelings for him, most of which, if you made a list, would fall in the pros column. He’s (usually) thoughtful, kind, and polite. He’s (usually) sweet, responsible, and funny. He’s always charming. Until now, he’s always been upbeat. He’s the kind of guy parents love, because he’s easygoing, well-educated, and successful. He loves kids. He has a great relationship with his own parents, and has a core group of nice, stable friends.
In short, he’s good marriage material.
In the cons column, underlined in red, would be his jealousy. If I were more like Grace, I’d get it, but I’m not. Prior to the A.J. incident, I’d never given him any reason to distrust me, yet he often acted as if I had the male escort line on speed dial.
Just below the red-lined jealousy would be a big question mark after the word “beer.”
Because I’m pretty sure I smell beer on him right now, at eight o’clock in the morning, and I don’t know what to do with that disturbing fact.
“Chloe!”
The barista calls my name; my order’s ready. I’m so relieved I want to burst out in hysterical laughter. I don’t think I can take this tension one second longer.
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