Dating da Vinci

by Malena Lott

  “Are you sure?” I could feel the guilt of spending a day with da Vinci in the sun melt away with each reassuring word from my son. “What about you, Bradley?”

  “Whatever,” Bradley said, which was his way of giving permission.

  An hour later, the boys were back home with a neighborhood sitter while we were out in the country, which felt the same as being on another planet. The change in da Vinci was perceptible; he was more at ease in the country, as if we were closer to his homeland. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, we were surrounded by food vendors and throngs of people who had done just as we had and gotten away from it all.

  Da Vinci took my hand as we made our way through the crowd to the wine tables where we could sample a dozen wines, and I was surprised at how comfortable his hand felt in mine. We took our first glass of wine-a white, sweet varietal-and plopped down right in the middle of two dozen blankets around us, filled by couples and even young families. I wondered if we should've brought the boys, but I knew Bradley would've complained about missing the game and I would have to be the mom instead of what, da Vinci's date?

  He was progressing further in his English than my other students, something that made me feel guilty because of the individual attention I was giving him. He had begun to make friends at UT, though he felt too old to join a fraternity, where he said they care only about guzzling beer and meeting girls. He surprised me, considering he had asked me the first day if I could hook him up with Jessica Simpson. As far as I could tell, he hadn't dated anyone on campus, though he had gone to a few study groups.

  Da Vinci lay back on the blanket, his hands behind his head and stared up at the clouds. “This is my idea of Heaven,” he said.

  “A wine festival?”

  “A beautiful place with a beautiful woman.” He reached up and touched his thumb to my cheek. I took his hand and kissed it, forgetting for the moment that we were surrounded by people, but they were safe, strangers.

  It had been so long since I had just sat and relaxed that it took me two glasses of wine to unwind. Finally I lay on the blanket next to da Vinci, propped on my side. I could've stared at him all afternoon. People pay for cable and you know what? Women would much rather pay to watch a beautiful man breathe, just inches from you, close enough that you can smell his shampoo and aftershave. “Tell me what you think about when you daydream. And what do you write in that notebook of yours?”

  Da Vinci removed the notebook from the back pocket of his jeans, but didn't show it to me. “I wondered if you would ask. Inquisitive teacher. I dream about everything. I dream about home, about mother and sisters and nieces and nephews. My grandparents had small vineyard, so my memories of them are going to stomp grapes and even as child, you get to drink wine at dinner table. Make me feel very grown. I think how much they would like you. My sisters always read magazines picturing American women with blonde hair. First woman I saw on uncle's TV was Three's Company show, no?”

  “Suzanne Somers.” Another big-boobed blonde with giant, shiny teeth. Wow. I'm nothing like her at all.

  “I dream about what can I do in the future for job.”

  “But you've enjoyed every job you've had so far, right? Being a florist and a landscaper and preparing food.”

  Da Vinci propped his head on his hand and looked at me eye to eye, just six inches from my face. I was afraid to breathe. “I do them and am good at them, but I get bored and ready for next challenge. Does this make sense? I'd rather do this.”

  I cleared my throat. By this, I was thinking he meant spend his days at wine festivals and not spend his days with me no matter what we are doing, but I was too embarrassed or shocked to ask him to clarify. “I don't think lounging around in the sun pays much,” I teased.

  He took my hand and kissed the soft side of my wrist, a place I don't recall ever being kissed by anyone. Then he moved up my arm, kissing it until he reached the velvety paper-thin skin on the inside of my elbow, perhaps the softest skin on the body, where I had never been kissed, either.

  Then he leaned in and kissed my lips, slowly, softly, again and again until the noise and the people had all stopped for us, or else I had put them on pause. When I pulled away, da Vinci smiled. “What? Is it okay?”

  I smiled back, the noise rushing back into our space. “Very, very okay.” Over a loudspeaker, a man made the announcement for the next wine tour so we joined our group. His notebook went back in his pocket, its contents still a mystery. We held hands and listened to the vintner talk about the wine, only I didn't hear a word he said. I was listening for the smaller sounds that felt enormous-the sound of da Vinci's laughter, the sound of our clothes rustling as we walked in unison, the sound of the grass crunching beneath our feet.

  And besides listening, I was enraptured by touch-da Vinci pulling me in closer to him, his arm around my waist, hip to hip, lingering behind the group, walking slowly, and when we reached the end of the row and they turned right, we turned left and slipped away, da Vinci pushing me against the vines, grapes like barrettes in my hair as he kissed me deeply, passionately. With each kiss I could feel myself coming back to life, my blood pumping through my veins, my heart beating fast, wild, my skin remembering how good it felt to be touched, to be wanted.

  My da Vinci was an explorer. His hands explored my body, he pulled me into him, and then he explored the warm territory of my back, the soft region of my breasts, and just when he headed south, I could see the group coming our way, so I stopped the exploration and we ran, hand in hand down the long row of vines to explore elsewhere. Together.

  Chapter 8

  Scrabble word: pursuit (22 points)

  FOR A LINGUIST, THERE is no better sport than Scrabble. Though doing the crossword had been a couples' sport for Joel and me, Scrabble had always been a family sport. Joel had been very competitive, turning everything we did into a game. The boys loved it. Last one to the ice cream stand doesn't get sprinkles! (Me.) First one to jump in the lake gets to dunk someone! (Me, dunked.) Even the neighborhood weekly basketball game had a prize. Losing team had to buy beer for the winning team on their guys' night out at, yep, a sports bar. The sport didn't matter: football, basketball, hockey, baseball. Joel's last words were about winning. And sex.

  He had hooked his arm around my neck and whispered in my ear, “Winner gets the booty prize.” Of course I could never tell anyone this. I had attended only one grief group session at Life Church and vowed never to return. We went around the circle sharing what our loved ones last words had been; they had all been rather ordinary, like life: Honey, can you pick up some milk at the store? We've got dinner reservations at six. Have you seen my black socks? And my personal favorite: We're out of hemorrhoid cream. But just because someone said “hemorrhoid cream” did not mean I would reveal my husband's last words. Besides, some things should be kept private. It was the last thing that could only be shared with Joel and me. I had dissected his words a hundred times over. No matter which way I spliced it, how I might've wished he would've said “I love you” one last time, he was being Joel. He was a guy's guy who loved having sex with his girl. I should be proud that after nearly ten years of marriage, he still wanted to have sex with me. And better yet, to consider it a “prize.”

  Still. There were times Joel's competitive nature irked me, but his passionate pursuit for winning was his thing. Being number one was important to him. The kind of person who hangs his plaques and awards and news clippings on the wall where he can remind himself of his achievements and everyone else can see them, too. I felt inferior in this department, not that he did anything to make me feel this way. He preferred the spotlight while I lingered contentedly in the shadows. I was a watcher. He was a doer. In my humble opinion, the doer should never die.

  Putting that word, pursuit, on the Scrabble board was a small reminder that I could not give up. I had never been a chaser of dreams. But even a bookworm like me could pursue happiness, and if it so happened that eros came along with it, then so be it.
In fact, I was currently playing footsie with da Vinci under the table. He was seated to my right and I had slipped off my fuzzy slippers and crept my toes inside the leg of his jeans. Da Vinci had responded by putting his hand on my knee and moving his thumb in small circles on my bone. I had no idea even that hard part of my body could have so much feeling.

  The boys played with us, William currently in the lead because I wasn't at the top of my game. The footsie and the knee rubbing were distracting my mental capacity for word formation. Da Vinci was holding his own with four- and some five-letter English words. The boys loved to catch him misspelling something, though honestly I would've let him get by with it. I didn't have to be his teacher all the time.

  Bradley hated Scrabble, yet he played with us because he was a joiner like his father. He didn't want to be excluded. And he was better at the game than he realized. He thought of words I would never think to assimilate on my tile rack. Defense. Tackle. Touchdown. (That one was on the triple word score.) He collected medals and ribbons and trophies on his bedroom wall on a special shelf put up by his father. (Same for William, only different sorts of prizes.)

  I didn't have a single medal, certificate, or plaque in my possession. I'm sure I received them. I got good grades, but my mother had never been one to boast, and while she probably had them tucked somewhere in a chest in the attic to give me before or after she died, we didn't make a big deal out of winning. “It's how you play the game,” she had told us a thousand times. We often unconsciously repeat the words our parents put in our mouths from our childhood, and when I said those words to our sons, Joel would shake his head, and add, “But it is important to do your best. There's nothing wrong with winning.” So he was verbally sort of agreeing with me while physically disagreeing with me. I hated when he did that.

  If being an overachiever is a downfall, then I'll take it. It was much better than so many spousal issues. He still made time for fun. If life was a game, then he played it very, very well.

  Monica had been just like him. Even in her glossy magazine article, I could tell she was still on the overachiever track. She was a partner in her law firm and had collected all the rewards of her pursuit of riches and fame. Happiness, I wasn't so sure. Why else had she begun to pursue Joel again when she was married? My own journey meant our roads had to converge. I was building up the courage to confront her, but had not yet figured out a way that I wouldn't sound like a total idiot. I began to understand the phrase, “bury the hatchet.” (An American English colloquialism meaning “to make peace.” Borrowed from the figurative or literal practice of putting away the tomahawk at the cessation of hostilities among or by Native Americans in the Eastern United States. Weapons were to be buried or otherwise cached in time of peace.)

  Still, I had to know. I would never achieve inner peace without it.

  People like Joel can think of an idea and have a plan formulated in a matter of minutes and then, as the Nike slogan goes, just do it. People like me have to dip their toe into the water first. We do our research. Cover our bases. And then, at a snail's pace, proceed.

  Thus far, I have done the research. In my grief binder, I have written both the work and home phone numbers, e-mail addresses and physical addresses for Monica Blevins. I have pulled up her corporate web site and read and re-read her bio. I don't know what I was hoping to find. It was a very bland, lawyer-type bio, packed full of the kind of achievements achievers like to add to such. The fourth time I read it I noticed something: a clue. Top 40 Under 40 class, three years ago, same as Joel. There had been a reception and Joel had asked me if I wanted to go, but I usually declined his corporate schmooze-fests and besides, William and Bradley had pizza night at Cub Scouts. I'd take a greasy slice of pepperoni and rowdy kids to a boring business function any day.

  I tried to recall that night. I'd seen the plaque. He'd handed it to me when he got in that night.

  “It's late,” I'd said. 10 p.m. Well, late for married people on a school night. Late I thought for a business reception. “How did it go?”

  “Fine,” he'd said. “Nothing special.”

  “Nice plaque. It's even got your name engraved on it.”

  “I'll live in infamy,” he'd joked as he planted the kiss in the middle of my forehead.

  “Smells like you had wine.”

  “You've got a nose like a bloodhound.”

  “And perfume.” Our eyes had locked. “You must stop hugging all the ladies, darling.” I 'd been joking.

  He had laughed. I was never very good at jokes. Joel and Bradley were the good jokesters in the family and William could hold his own where sarcasm was concerned, but Joel had only retreated to the bathroom to brush the wine from his teeth and toss the perfume-scented clothes in the hamper. I hadn't thought it had been anything other than my husband's proclivity to hug his associates-yes, guys, too. It wasn't very PC (you are supposed to do “side hugs” in the office), but still.

  It was two weeks after that Joel mentioned he was up for a bid on a new big law firm project. I had been finishing the crossword puzzle. (Joel got it first, answered the ones he knew-typically sports- and business-related items-and then I finished it off, usually two-thirds, not that I'm boasting.) “Oh, yeah. Which one? Don't tell me, it has a bunch of people's last names in it. Like Swarovski, William-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel. Right?”

  “Close. Stevens Blevins Polanski.”

  “Like Roman Polanski.” I was always looking for ways to link words, make them familiar to me, place them in the Rolodex of my mind. But the name Blevins had not rung a bell until much later.

  A month later, Joel's firm had been awarded the project, and he had been busy in his studio drawing up the designs. “My best work yet,” he said, same as he did with every new project.

  I recalled breakfast meetings and lunch meetings and even a couple of late-night dinner meetings. This was not altogether uncommon for big projects when the decision makers couldn't carve the time into their day to meet with the architects, so they got creative and involved food. Even so, there were a few more of those meetings than was typical. But when I found out which partner he was meeting with, who was leading the project and sharing breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my husband, I went ballistic. Monica Blevins. Beautiful, my-first-love, ex-fiancée Monica Blevins. Married, but still. Come on.

  Then came the fights. You don't trust me. How can you possibly think I'd cheat on you with her after what she did to me? Did you know how much I loved her? How hard it was for me to love again after what happened? Do you know how humiliating it was to tell our family and friends there would be no wedding after everything they'd invested? How many friendships were ruined because they had to pick sides? Come on, Ramona. Please. Have some faith.

  But I hadn't. I couldn't. My mind raced with the words I thought could ruin us. But it wasn't the hint of adultery that nearly ruined us-it was the crumbling of the faith that could have led to our demise. In fact, I think the more that I obsessed over it, the more he probably considered having an affair. I had demanded too much. What did you talk about? What's her husband like? Are they happily married? Did you talk about me? About the kids? Do you still have feelings for her? On and on, I'd gone like an idiot missing a shut-off switch. With each question, I had dug us deeper into a hole. For Joel, faith was never an issue. He believed in me, in us. He believed in God and believed he would go to Heaven. He believed you could forgive and be friends with someone who broke your heart. I didn't. I believed eros could never fully be erased from one's memory-its magical dust so tiny on the soul, it could never be cleansed. He didn't have to tell me he still loved her. I knew deep in my bones.

  He had done what good husbands do and gave the project-his blood, sweat, and tears and drawings-to another partner and said, “Fine. If you can't be mature about this, then I won't see her again.” And he died two weeks later.

  Da Vinci and I hadn't found a moment to be alone together again the entire week after the wine festival. Though we had made out
like teenagers in the front seat of my black station wagon in the field parking lot at the festival, I wasn't about to have sex with him in my car. Not even the darkest tinted windows (if I had them) could make me give in to desire. But almost. Especially after he whispered, “ Ti desidero. ” I want you. And I so badly wanted to be wanted. No, I needed to be wanted. But it had to be the right time. And in the car was not it. If I was going to give up my second virginity, it had to be special.

  This, too, became my pursuit, though not a “write it down on paper, put it in a grief binder” kind of pursuit. The pursuit was within, the prick of desire that wouldn't go away, the wheels of our ultimate union were already in motion-the eyes, the flirting, the touching, the kissing-it all led down one road. If. If I let it happen. If I gave in to him, though my mind was telling me it might not be a good idea. Because he was my student. Because it was too soon. Because I was afraid what might happen if I did.

  Remember, me not being the “just do it” type, also applied to just doing it. Everything in time. But soon.

  Scheduling time for things like amore is difficult enough for married people, but nearly impossible for widows with two busy kids, a nosy mother and a needy sister. Zoe had another something Rachel wanted us to attend. Not sure if it was a recital (modern dance, jazz, ballet, singing), a play (where Rachel fought for the lead role each time) or a beauty pageant, but nonetheless, we were expected to be there for every single one of them. (Not that she returned the attention by going to my boys' events, because though she'd “love to,” the mini-celeb, rising star herself was just “too busy.”)

  Da Vinci asked to come along, and my first instinct was that it was a very bad idea. I didn't want my family thinking there was anything going on with da Vinci, and it might look peculiar to have him tagging along to a family event. But he was lonely. And he loved children, saying often how much he missed his big family back in Italy. I worried that the kids liked him too much now, that da Vinci would move on from us and they would lose another male figure. Protecting my children from future heartbreak was more important than my own.