True Blend

by DeMaio, Joanne

  “Talk to me,” he says.

  * * *

  “George.” He looks from Amy’s hands gripping the chair back, to the faded denim vest over her black tank dress, to her eyes. That’s when her small smile stops and she takes a seat at the far end of the table. “It’s been a crazy summer,” she begins, waiting when he stands and picks up her wine glass, depositing it on the table in front of her before returning to his seat. She takes a long sip and he is certain that she came here to break up. It’s all been too much, too fast. Their relationship can’t work. She isn’t ready.

  “And a difficult one,” she continues. “My thoughts have gone in so many directions. And my emotions? They’ve been all over the map.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. We both deserve better than you going around in circles.”

  “I’m just trying to explain why I’m here.”

  George looks out the slider, finishing his wine. He refills his glass, glancing at her. “You know I love you, Amy. Now I’m going to tell you one more time.” He sips the red wine. “Talk to me.”

  She closes her eyes for a moment. “I’m afraid.”

  “That’s better.” He takes a long breath.

  “I don’t know if I can continue to see you.”

  The smell of spaghetti sauce fills the room, carrying the ironic idea of dinner, and wine, and intimacy. When in actuality, she’s giving him an out without even realizing it. “What are you afraid of?”

  Her eyes widen in an effort to stave off tears. “You,” she whispers.

  He gives a short laugh and drags a hand through his hair. “You’re afraid of me.”

  “No.” She shakes her head.

  “Well what is it then?” he asks, his voice rising with impatience.

  “Of us. I’m afraid of what we have, George. You don’t know what my life’s been like this past year. The two people I loved with all my heart were suddenly taken as though they weren’t mine to begin with. One minute they were there, the next they were gone. Just gone.”

  “Grace.”

  “Yes. And Mark. And each time, it felt like a physical blow to my body. It just doubled me over.”

  George brings his elbows to the table, lacing his fingers together and pressing them to his mouth. He isn’t sure what she is getting at. Has Grace given a verbal indication as to his identity? Or did Amy put pieces of her memory together and recognize him from the parking lot? Is she turning him in gently?

  “I love you, George. I do. Okay?”

  He looks across the length of the table at her, at her blonde hair tucked behind her ears, at her initial pendant hanging from a gold chain. Her face is flush with the day’s warmth even though he’s set the central air to chill the place.

  “I want to be with you. I want you in my life. But my God, if anything should happen to you, if Grace and I were to lose you, I don’t think I could take it.”

  “So you’re breaking up with me because you love me?”

  She presses a finger beneath her eye to stem the tears. “That’s how scary the thought of loving again has become since that day at the bank. It’s why I get nervous when we get close, why I can’t make decisions. Oh, I guess it’s why my silverware is really shining these days. If I lose you, George, if you stop loving me, or leave me, or die, I don’t think I’ll be able to breathe.”

  George stands and looks out the slider at the dark shadows of twilight. “There are no guarantees in life. There are just odds. None of us knows what’s around the corner.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I just don’t know how to get past this.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he answers. “You’re very right. It has been a crazy summer. Every time you get on your feet, a wave comes up behind you and knocks you down again.” He walks to her and sits close. “You need life to be slow and sweet and predictable right now.”

  “I do.”

  After a moment, George sets his elbows on his knees and takes her hands in his. “Are you saying you don’t want to see me?”

  She shakes her head no, tears rising. “Please don’t hate me. I’m just saying that after everything I’ve been through, I don’t know how to let myself do this again.”

  “What about that night after the beach? I felt something then.”

  “I know. But that was before. Before the stalking or whatever the hell it is. Before I got so scared again, of everything. Even of us.”

  “What did you think?” he asks, leaning close, their faces nearly touching, their voices barely audible. “Did you think I’d let you go without a fight?” His thumb catches a tear on her cheek. “Did you think I wouldn’t try to fix it for you?”

  “I can’t leave you. It’s just that I love you and that really scares me.” She smiles through her tears. “Sometimes I wake up and I don’t know what’s real. Only for a second, because of all that’s happened. When I’m lying there, I wonder if it’s real that you brought Grace back to me. And then I do know. And I think of you at work, maybe, and you’re listening to Sinatra, or talking to your customers. And my heart feels so happy, George. And then,” she pauses, “I just get afraid.”

  “Don’t.” He tips his forehead to hers, still holding her hands. “I would never hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  George brings a hand to her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Hey,” he says softly as an image of his father comes to mind. Do right by her, George, he said in the dream. Make me proud. He isn’t sure if this is right, but something tells him to try. It worked for his father all his life. “When’s the last time anyone took you dancing? Not line dancing. I mean really dancing.”

  “Oh George.” Amy smiles into his hand.

  “Do you know we’ve never been on a real date, you and me? You can’t break up with me if we’ve never even gone out. Let me take you out dancing.”

  “Somewhere like The Stardust Ballroom?”

  George tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “For you, sweetheart? I’ll have it built. You find a beautiful dress, wear it and I’ll take you dancing. How about Thursday? Keep Thursday night open for me.” He puts his other hand on her face and kisses her. “Then I’ll take you to the movies on our second date, next week. We’ll have popcorn and Raisinets.” He helps her to her feet, holding her in his arms and slow dancing beside the table. “Then, for another date, we’ll go out for a long dinner. Take-out seafood on the river. We’ll drink coffee afterward and stay up half the night watching the boats. It’ll be a slow and easy summer.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Amy says, her arms circling his waist while they sway in a slow, silent waltz in the dining room.

  “It can be.” Whispers change into kisses as he traces her face; kisses change into touch as he feels her hands and mouth collect sensations, slowly, reaching beneath his shirt, moving over his skin, believing that she can do this. That she can love him.

  * * *

  George kisses her longer, slow dancing her into the living room. His fingers wrap around all of hers, folding her hands in his as he backs her up beside the fireplace, raising her arms and pressing them to the wall. She closes her eyes briefly, thinking of the sketch she drew earlier. It’s always the same, always the same. The image never changes, and yet. And yet it’s unfinished. George’s grip on hers is strong and she can’t fight the memory of another grip in the bank parking lot. But his insistence now distracts her, the way his hands move to her shoulders, slipping her denim vest off before cradling her face as she leans back against the wall, his arms blocking her in.

  “You have to know,” he says, looking down at her. The room is shadowy, the outside light fading at dusk.

  “Know what?” she murmurs back, her hands touching his shoulders, his arms, slipping around his back, pulling him closer.

  “That I’m not leaving you.” He bends then and kisses her as though he’s on one long inhale, that the kiss is necessary to live. With his hands still holding her face
, with the kiss growing deeper, he walks her over to the sofa, lowering a hand behind her back as he lays her there, her arms pulling him down with her. In the darkening room, his presence is a mere shadow, a closeness that can’t be denied. But it’s the strength of his insistence, of the way his hands roughly get her clothes where they need to be, that has her breath quicken, has her kiss him deeper still, pulling him nearer, as if that were possible. Amy takes his hand in hers, entwining their fingers as his mouth moves to her neck, her throat, her shoulder.

  And she thinks that being with George in the dark, with no illumination in the unfamiliar room, is the same as trying, trying to remember the missing details of one day; she was there, yet still searches. Like now, with the weight of him moving over her, she feels enough of his strength to know him, to love him, and yet the darkness covers something, somehow. He pulls his hand away then and takes her arms, pressing them up on the sofa beside her head, and raises himself over her. When she starts to reach for his shoulder, his hands quickly slide up to her wrists, holding her arms down.

  And when he lowers his mouth to the soft of her neck, not releasing her arms, she knows that all of life is like that damn sketch. Love is sketched in too, in the moment she says she loves him, in the seconds after he loosens his hold when she moves her hand over his heart and he stills, in the memory she has of his thumb tracing over her lips before his fingers cover them when she starts to talk. It’s never really complete, the lines of love and worry and doubts and love yet again all crossing the other, sketching, sketching further with each breath we take, each touch we give.

  * * *

  When Amy’s fingers entwine with his again, he gets angry. Not at her, but angry that the thought has to be there at all, the thought that she’ll recognize him from the mere feel of his God damn hand. That one memory can bring the realization of exactly who he is at any moment, even right now as he moves over her. And so George takes her hands, and with his anger, clenches them, gets them away from the scene of the crime once and for all when he raises them higher and presses them into the sofa. And he’s mad, too, that he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t take the out she offered. When she arrived earlier, it was the perfect window through which he could escape, leaving this all behind. He could’ve told her he understood her doubts and that it would be best if they went their separate ways. That their history was too painful for this to work.

  Instead he feels every bit of the length and curve of her body beneath him now, every molecule of her skin and soul pressing against his, his every touch sparked with that anger still. Because why couldn’t he just buy that bike and hightail it out of Addison for a while, at the very least, taking off with Nate and choosing a different way of living. One without Amy Trewist tormenting a part of every day, every thought.

  And so it’s all there—the anger at a bankroll behind tiles in the next room, at a brother who dragged him into this, at a father who instilled in him a conscience, at a priest telling him to seek absolution as if he God damn knows. At a beautiful woman who crossed paths with him one fine spring morning and changed the direction of every single thing he does, so that whatever he does now puts her at more risk. And that gets him mad, that he can’t love her freely. And so his hands tell her this is how it’ll be, pinning her bare arms down, pushing his hand beneath her back, lifting her to him until he’s brought to tears that this is how love came to him, on someone else’s terms, and so tonight, one time, that love is on his terms, physically, and he’s sure she knows it.

  Afterward, she lies silent beside him. And he has to look away, to shift his position, raising his arm so that it crosses over his eyes. Time passes, a minute or ten, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it passes in her silence, and he’s also damn sure she’ll leave in another few. Just pick her dress and denim vest up off the floor and quietly slip away to be done with him after what he just did. Maybe it’s what he wanted, to give her an out too, with the force of his touch. Instead her hand eventually rises, again, to his heart, feeling the beat of it, he knows.

  As soft and gentle a touch he’s ever felt. And his breath releases, slowly leaving his lungs and leaving him depleted.

  “George,” she whispers in the dark now, so very close beside him on the couch, her legs against his. “Before, I didn’t mean—” she begins, but he reaches over and presses back her blonde hair, his fingers sliding along her gold chain to her initial pendant, and shakes his head, no. “What?” she asks.

  “Don’t,” he says, his hand reaching behind her neck, her skin damp with perspiration, his mouth kissing hers gently. “It’s okay. Don’t talk, don’t explain.” He shifts on his side and kisses her again. “We both understand this night for what it is.”

  She looks at him and her own fingers trail along his face, drop to his shoulder and pull him closer so that they make love once more, certain now. At least he is. Certain that they’re both in this, come what may, no matter what hand they’re dealt. Later they have dinner beneath a dim light near the slider, which he opens so they sit at the edge of a night that’s cooled little outside.

  “You know, George, I never want to feel again what I felt before.”

  “And what’s that?” he asks, sipping a glass of wine, thinking that she’s referring to his own contention earlier on the sofa. Warm July air drifts in beside them, the crickets chirp lazy.

  “That feeling that I can’t eat. That’s what happened. I was so afraid I’d lose you, I couldn’t eat.” She spears a forkful of spaghetti and he nudges her salad closer. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asks, motioning her fork to his full plate.

  He looks down and moves it aside. “I had a late lunch. I’ll pick later.” Though he knows he won’t. Every damn voice in his head has ratcheted up the volume now.

  When they have coffee, they sit out on the deck in the velvet black night. Not a breeze stirs any leaves; the heat hangs heavy; a distant train whistle winds through the quiet. And things have changed between them, he feels it and thinks she does, too. She’s looking up at the night sky.

  “There are no stars tonight, George. Look.”

  He does. No stars glimmer above; no silver moonlight falls on the earth. “Amy,” he says then. He had an out earlier, one that’s long gone now. She tips her head, waiting. He waits, too. Has been all summer long. He shifts his position in the deck chair, looking up at the sky above for a long moment. “They’re out there. We just can’t always see them.”

  Twenty-six

  AMY WALKS THROUGH HER SHOWROOM at Wedding Wishes with two long gowns draped over her arm. Everything about the day feels perfect. The sunshine after a morning shower makes things sparkle; twinkling lights in her shop hint at stars; returning to working with her gowns brings in two morning consultations. Sometimes life is just as it should be.

  “I love this one,” the bride-to-be stepping out of the dressing room tells her. Embroidered lace netting overlays a satin underslip on the sleeveless sheath gown.

  “It’s perfect,” her sister says from the velvet settee where she sits with their mother.

  “Are you sure?” Amy asks. One look at the mother-of-the-bride’s misty eyes tells her that yes, this is the dress. The tears give it away every time. “I’ve got a Victorian that might work. The sleeves are long, but they’re lace so you wouldn’t be too warm.” She hangs the two gowns on a nearby rack.

  “Oh no. I’m getting married in the heart of summer. This gown is it.”

  “When’s the date?” Amy steps behind the bride and fans out the brush train.

  “The end of August,” she says. “In my backyard. We’re keeping it simple. We’ve got a gazebo and my mom’s flower garden will be in full bloom.”

  The sheath gown with its straight neckline is sublime in its simplicity. “A garden wedding! Sleeveless really caught on in the 1970s, so you picked a great era to choose from.” Amy steps back and studies the way the gown falls along her body. “A few alterations and you’ll be good to go. Do you have a tailor?”
r />   “We do,” the mom answers. “And what about a veil?”

  “I think a birdcage, to keep that light, elegant look,” Amy suggests as the bride turns on the raised pedestal. “Maybe anchored with a special flower from Mom’s garden?”

  They all tear up again just as the door to the shop opens and a copious bouquet of summer blossoms, of dahlias and hydrangea and larkspur and calla lily, is delivered by a florist from the next town over. “Is there an Amy Trewist here?” the deliveryman asks.

  “Oh! That’s me.” Amy steps forward and takes the large arrangement. “Wow, these are gorgeous.”

  “Can you sign please?”

  “Yes, of course.” She dips her face close to the flowers, then sets the arrangement on the checkout counter and takes the clipboard. “Thank you so much.”

  “Have a nice day,” he tells her as he walks out.

  Amy turns to see the three women in her shop watching her with smiles on their faces.

  “Hm,” the bride muses. “Maybe you’ll be looking for a gown for yourself soon?”

  “Me? Oh no. We’re just dating,” Amy answers with a laugh. The bride looks from the flowers to Amy with a raised eyebrow. “Really,” she insists.

  When the appointment ends and the bride lifts her gown, all wrapped and zipped in a garment bag, Amy stops her. “Wait,” she says as she pulls a pink and yellow dahlia from her bouquet. She sets it in a sprig of baby’s breath and entwines it all in a silver barrette, then pins it in the bride’s hair. “You’ll have a beautiful day, I’m sure. And don’t forget to add your wedding wish to a star on the Wish Wall before you leave. Then after the wedding, bring me a photograph and I’ll replace your wish with it. Everyone loves seeing the wishes come true.”

  With the wish posted, the women head out to Whole Latte Life, intending to celebrate in the coffee shop with lots of coffee and plenty of cake. Amy closes the door behind them and finally has a moment to call George at work. Listening to the ring, she knows he is walking to the wall phone, wiping his hands on his black apron before picking up. Strains of Sinatra meet her ear before his voice does. “Main Course,” George answers.