Under Her Skin

by Adriana Anders

10

  After what Uma came to think of as “The Standoff,” Ms. Lloyd was surprisingly agreeable. In fact, she was in superfine fettle the next day. Probably because Uma let her win at cards. Their truce was friendly, and after all was said and done, she might one day grow to like the old bird. Stranger things had happened.

  After a morning spent shopping, Uma went to the kitchen to prepare what she had dubbed their “Leftover Lunch.” Today, it was tuna melts, using what remained from last night’s tuna casserole. At the store, she’d realized that her culinary upbringing may have had more of an influence on her than she liked to admit, prompting her to make slight changes to the menu.

  From her bag, she pulled ingredients probably fresher than anything this kitchen had ever seen and got to prepping.

  “What’s that you’re washing?” Ms. Lloyd asked distrustfully from a spot close behind her. Her large breast nudged Uma’s elbow in a way that felt oddly familiar, strangely comforting, almost maternal.

  Of course the woman wouldn’t recognize lettuce if it wasn’t iceberg. “Lettuce. I thought I’d make a salad today with our sandwiches.”

  “And that. What’s that?” She pointed.

  “That?” For the love of God. “It’s bread.”

  “Bread? Doesn’t look like it. What kind of bread is that?”

  “Whole grain, I think. I got it at the bakery in town this morning.” Uma kept her voice light.

  “Where’s my Wonder?” Ms. Lloyd whined.

  “This is healthier.”

  “Well, I won’t eat it. Looks like cardboard.”

  “Dr. Oz says we have to eat grains. And greens too. You heard him.”

  “White bread’s a grain.”

  “White bread is sugar. Just try it. One time, and if you don’t like it, I’ll leave it alone.”

  Ms. Lloyd was quiet for a moment, then came out with a grumpy “hmph,” a sound perfected through years of overuse.

  After setting the table, Uma ran out back and picked a few big branches of rosemary from the herb garden beside Ivan’s house. It might not be floral, but it smelled good. She placed them on the table in the only vase she could find that didn’t already contain a dried flower arrangement. Porcelain, with a crying clown, diamonds on its tights. She turned its face to the wall.

  The table looked as nice as it was going to. Her photographer’s eye enjoyed the bright greens dotted with red splashes of radicchio, tuna, and crusty bread topped with white cheddar instead of the artificial yellow cheese her boss favored. Overall, it was an enormous improvement upon every other meal they’d shared.

  The women sat and ate quietly. Well, Uma ate quietly—the Black Widow huffed and puffed and whined, poking at her food, but eventually ended up eating every single crumb on her plate. Uma held back a smile of satisfaction.

  “So,” she said, clearing the dishes from the table, “did you enjoy your lunch?”

  “Disgusting. Next time I ask for groceries, you’d better get me my groceries, or I’m docking your pay. Oooma.” She moved off to the living room to watch her stories.

  Uma smiled.

  * * *

  That evening, Uma was washing up after dinner when someone knocked at the door.

  Oh God. He found me.

  Six months of running sent her heart into hyperdrive, and her already wet hands went cold and shaky. She turned off the water and went to hover behind the open kitchen door.

  “Oooma, get the door!” Ms. Lloyd called.

  She didn’t move.

  Breath held in tight lungs, Uma strained to hear above the sounds of Jeopardy!…and knew suddenly who it was. The air whooshed out, and she sagged against the wall in relief. Even if she hadn’t recognized him, her boss’s tittering would have clued Uma in to the fact that the visitor was a friendly male rather than a stranger from Northern Virginia, come to fetch her.

  “That you, boy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, it’s certainly an improvement. Hardly recognized you.”

  “Figured it was time for a change.”

  “Hmph.”

  “You giving Uma any time off, Ms. L? Or you back to your slave-driving ways?”

  “Oh please, she’s spoiled rotten. Free food, warm bed. Cash every week. She’s gettin’ a deal, if you ask me!”

  Just as Uma was about to move through the kitchen door, he said, “She around right now?” Oh. He’d come to see her. Something about that idea made her hesitate, unsure what to feel. Good, bad, guilty? What did he expect from her? Had she led him on? Did she want to?

  “You want to talk to her?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Was he there to ask her out again?

  “Well, she’s not currently available.”

  She stayed still and waited, stifling a gasp of outrage.

  “Her car’s here, so I thought—”

  “She’s very busy and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  He paused then, longer than you’d expect. “Could you please mention that I stopped by?”

  “’Course I will.”

  Steps sounded on the porch and then stopped.

  “So, I take it the ad worked, then? You like her?”

  “She’s a bit mouthy. ’Course, it’s only been a week. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?”

  “Guess so.”

  “What’d it say, anyway?” asked Ms. Lloyd. “Did they get it right? I never got to see it in print.”

  His voice faded in and out as he responded. “…nice…older person…live-in helper.”

  “Well, I guess it worked all right. Go on now, boy, and don’t come back unless you’ve got those doughnut holes I like. And a copy of the Gazette.”

  Uma didn’t hear his response, but she didn’t really need to.

  Why was Ms. Lloyd asking Ivan about the ad? With the distance between them transforming things, she’d probably misunderstood, but it sure sounded like—

  Holy shit. Had he done that? Placed that ad?

  A moment came back to her—that first meeting with Ms. Lloyd, when she’d called her an old hag. What if…

  She covered her mouth to stifle an “oh” of embarrassed surprise and sagged back against the counter, stuck there until the woman came into the kitchen.

  “What’s got you?” asked Ms. Lloyd, looking the slightest bit guilty.

  “Remember what I called you when we first met?”

  The older woman frowned, eyes narrowed. “Indeed I do. You’re lucky I didn’t throw you out right then and there.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why I called you that?”

  “Because you’re a vulgar hussy, that’s why!”

  “There is that, but… Hang on.” Uma stood up straight. “I’ll be right back.” She took off up the stairs and into her room, where she found the ad crumpled on the dresser, next to a stale, twenty-year-old bowl of potpourri.

  In the dark hall, before heading back down, she hesitated again. Should she even show this to Ms. Lloyd? It would hurt her feelings, wouldn’t it? Remembering the look on the woman’s face when she’d called her a hag, though, clinched it. She deserved to know the truth.

  Back in the living room, she pressed the paper into Ms. Lloyd’s hand.

  The woman read aloud, “‘Old hag in need of…’” She looked up and blinked. “What is this?”

  “The ad I answered for this job. From the Gazette. See? That’s your number, right there.”

  “You mean…” Her voice trailed off as her owl eyes met Uma’s. Despite her concern, it was shocking to see pain there, quickly stifled. “That sonovabitch.”

  “Is Ivan the one who placed this for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, he wrote it?”

  “Oh
my—” Ms. Lloyd moved across the room and sank onto her pink floral nightmare of a sofa, looking small and defeated.

  “Why would he do this?” Uma asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Damn it, why had he done it? Was it all some sick game? She thought back to the way he’d taken care of her, asked her out on a date, even offered his bed. That level of kindness didn’t make sense. None of it did. And what about his relationship with Ms. Lloyd? Was he pretending to care about her? One day, Uma would be long gone from their lives, but they’d still be neighbors. He was the only outside contact she seemed to have. Her only friend. But what kind of friend did this?

  “No wonder,” said Ms. Lloyd, coming slightly out of her daze.

  “No wonder what?”

  “The calls. You’ve heard ’em. The damn calls.”

  “Because of the ad?”

  “That’d be my guess. Pranks. When you called me a hag, you were… Let’s just say you weren’t the first.”

  “Am I the first serious response you’ve gotten through this ad?”

  Ms. Lloyd shrugged. “Had a few before. Seven or eight. From previous ads. He always did ’em for me, no problem. I read ’em in the paper—every one but this one. He always said the Gazette was sold out so I didn’t see it this time.” She sounded listless, nothing like the woman Uma had grown to tolerate, if not completely like.

  “Have you been advertising for a while?”

  “Few years now. Maybe five?” Whoa. That was a long time. “Ive always does it for me. Always. Such a nice boy.”

  “You’ve had eight different people here in five years? How long did they last?”

  “Couple of days. One of ’em lasted fifteen minutes.” After a pause, the old widow reared her head. “And good riddance too. Darn girl couldn’t even speak English right. Sounded like she’d been brought up by retarded pigs.”

  And there it was. The woman had a knack. In one fell swoop, sympathy gone, although the anger still lingered.

  Ms. Lloyd swiveled to face the TV and turned the volume up, a clear indication that the conversation was over.

  The rest of the evening was quieter than usual.

  Uma found that she almost missed her boss’s constant commentary.

  * * *

  Later, in bed, it was harder to forget. What the hell was that ad about? Why would Ivan do something so cruel? It didn’t fit. Rolling, she turned her pillow over and smacked it before laying her head back down. Uma closed her eyes. Drew in a breath. Opened them again to glare up at the ceiling.

  He must have had a reason for placing that ad. Right?

  She twisted and flopped in the silence.

  And why the hell wasn’t he working? It was too darned quiet.

  God, her head. She couldn’t take another minute of this silence and doubt, wondering… She should go over there and ask. He wouldn’t betray Ms. Lloyd like that for no reason, would he? And why did it feel like he’d betrayed her too when she’d answered it?

  Because I like him.

  Oh God, there it was. She liked him, and she’d turned down his request for a date, and here she was, alone in this crappy bed, again, and he was off…somewhere. Not working in his forge, in any case. Not keeping her company in that roundabout way, and somehow, the quiet was lonelier now than it had ever been before.

  It felt like she’d been here in bed forever with nothing but questions and irritation and doubts, and damn it, where was he? If she went over there and asked him… No. Stupid idea. Besides, he wasn’t even home, he was—

  Clang.

  There it was. The breath left her body, relief pressing her into her bed. He was there. Another bang, and another, and soon, without effort, her heart fell into step with his rhythm.

  Nothing, nobody had the power to relax her like this, to take everything else away. Rather than fight the urge, Uma went with it. She got up and dressed in the dark, grabbed that stupid ad and stuffed it into her pocket, and then tiptoed past her boss’s door, down the stairs, and out the kitchen door—headed straight for Ivan.

  As she walked, the clanging rang out, louder with each step she took. The thought that she’d finally get to witness Ivan the blacksmith excited her—and almost made her forget everything else.

  The door stood open, leaking warmth like an oven. The place must get incredibly hot in the summer.

  He was bent low over the anvil, hammering a piece of bright-red, burning metal with a mallet. Sparks flew like some kind of crazy fairy dust. He looked magical and mythical and so very…right. Powerful back and arms and hands worked in concert to hammer order into iron, and an errant thought escaped: images of him working her over the same way. Shaping and molding her into something strong and lasting. She trembled.

  It took Squeak’s wet nose to shake Uma out of her reverie. The dog met her in the doorway with what could only be described as a series of squeaks.

  When Uma glanced up, Ivan was watching her. Only he no longer looked like the same man. This Ivan was a whole new creature, transformed. Intimidating in an entirely different way. He looked pleased to see Uma, but insecure, awaiting a verdict.

  “Oh,” she stammered out. “Wow, you’re… Just wow.”

  And what a verdict it was. Gone was the beast she’d had a grudging connection with two nights before. This man was breathtakingly handsome.

  “You shaved. And you cut your hair and… It’s… Wow. Amazing.” The shock of the change was solid in the pit of her stomach. Attraction, she thought, skittering away from the notion.

  Ivan got a pleased, self-conscious look on his face. A kid given a compliment he didn’t know what to do with. It was adorable.

  “Come on in and have a seat,” he said a little too loudly, like maybe the beard had muffled his voice as well as his looks. As Uma walked past him, he leaned over his table, grabbed an earmuff-like thing off a hook, and handed it to her. “Put this on. I just need to finish up.”

  She pulled the ear protectors over her head and moved to her armchair in the corner while he returned to his hammering.

  He worked and she watched, transfixed. Each strike of cold metal to hot was precisely aimed. The vibrations hummed through every cell of her body—the same rhythm she’d come to depend on nightly. Only this time, she felt it from the inside out.

  Sparks blossomed in showers of bright gold, a halo for Ivan’s body. He was an alchemist, a god creating worlds.

  And his face. Oh, the man’s face. Dark brows drawn low over eyes half-closed against the light, mouth tight, chin and jaw rigid, clamped in stern concentration. Uma couldn’t help but imagine that expression focused on her, that hard body thrumming with excitement above hers. She crossed her legs to alleviate the pressure growing between them.

  Why, oh why, did he have to shave it off? She’d been okay before. Puzzled at the faint stirrings of attraction, yes, but willing to put it down to the feelings of coziness and safety he engendered in her.

  And then, there was how different he was from Joey. That was it. It rang truest. Back to faulty instincts again. They’d failed Uma so miserably when it came to Joey that she’d wanted to ignore them when it came to this man. She’d wanted to stay away, despite how easy it’d been. He’d gone from scary to trustworthy in less than a week—who was she kidding? In less than a day.

  So, maybe her instincts weren’t broken after all, merely slow. Like an arrow on a gauge, they needed time to swerve before settling on a final reading.

  “You got more of that moonshine?” she asked, too antsy to just sit there staring.

  He didn’t look up when he said, “Yep. Right over on that shelf. You’ll have to rinse your mug from the other night. Pump’s outside. Sorry. No runnin’ water out here.” No running water? Uma’s eyebrows rose at that, but she shrugged. “Got beers in the cooler too, if you’d rather.”

  Instead of goi
ng for the beer—the easy option—in kind of a show-offy move, which she’d surely regret, she went for the moonshine. As if to show how little she cared about germs and stuff, Uma filled her mug without rinsing it. “You want some?”

  “Hell no.” He shook his shoulders in a kind of exaggerated shudder of disgust. “Can’t stand the stuff.”

  “Hey!” she laughingly yelled, her voice shakier than she expected.

  “I’d take a beer, though.”

  She found the cooler and pulled out a bottle but couldn’t find anything to open it with.

  “Leave it there. I’ll get it when I’m done.”

  With a shrug, Uma left it on the shelf and took her mug back to the armchair, where she curled up and spent several moments trying to relax, looking everywhere but at him. A nearly impossible feat, when he was so big, so very there. She finally gave up and let herself watch the show, imagining throwing open those big, wooden doors and taking shots of him while he worked, day or night. Light or dark. Hot or cold. Opposites, just like those funky eyes of his. She wanted to capture it all.

  It was easy to let the ambiance he created form a surreal cushion around her, calming her and nearly wiping the stupid ad from her mind. She dipped her lips in the drink and kept her eyes on him, sinking heavily into it, the clanging of metal syncopating with her heartbeat, insulating them from the world outside. It was warm and dark, the light orange and intimate.

  She was no longer in modern-day Blackwood, shying from the horrors of her life, but caught in some alternate reality, some other time, some place medieval. She pictured him half-naked, chest gleaming in the firelight, muscles bunching with each slam of the hammer, his skin beaded with sweat, pebbled with goose bumps.

  Uma came out of her trance to find his hammer still, his eyes on her. Their intensity was palpable even from across the room.

  He hung the piece he’d finished working on and untied his apron, making her wish fervently that he wouldn’t stop there. She downed more of the moonshine, craving its intoxication. Unbutton your shirt, she thought, staring hard. Ivan apparently wasn’t a mind reader.

  He picked up his beer, popped the top on the edge of a worktable, and came toward her, his nearness strumming her nerves. The crate creaked under his weight just like the last time she’d been there, and she flashed back to that moment, thinking how much could change in so little time. She took another sip and let it relax her further, remembering how she’d been wrung out when he’d rescued her from her car. He, the scary, untouchable next-door neighbor, inviting her in for a slightly weird midnight drink.