I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his well, but I replied, “Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Confounding.”
Vi slapped his chest, weakly. “Hey.”
“I make my own choices,” I defended lightly, feeling the coolness of the tea through the glass in my hands. “I hear good advice and bad, but the choice was mine. When you accept that in advance you can get through almost anything and be at peace about it.”
“Mm.” Hunt’s eyebrows sloped towards the center.
“She’s always been like this,” Vi addressed, smirking. “Mitch didn’t want another responsibility. He was the best guy, but it was Bree. She didn’t just stick her neck out, she pushed. We went along with it and she was just a kid,” she said. Then looked at me. “I wasn’t the best to her back then.”
“You were my best friend,” I told her. She smiled. “And I’m not pushy. You’re the pushy one.”
“Not bossy like me or Jill. You’re erosive. You wear us down.” She sniggered.
“Yes, not like Violet,” I said to Hunt. “That’s a pushy little siren, you have there.”
“Why thank you,” she said.
Hunt lifted a brow, interested. “No success steering this one from the shark pool.”
“Not a chance. You should have seen her burst into this city. By the time I joined her she ran the lower East side, and her new bestie was a supermodel.”
“Virginia gals,” he said, staring at me.
“No one ever guesses we’re from there, you know,” Vi replied, frowning.
He patted Violet’s thigh. “All the women back home look like you two? Maybe I’ll go get a few more.”
“Har har,” Violet said and relaxed against him. “Only if you tell me where you’re from in Texas so I can go truffle hunting, too.”
He grinned. We sat quietly for a while longer, Hunt looking longingly over the balcony rail with Vi’s head on his shoulder. “Love the water. I’d spout gills if I could,” Hunt said, breaking the quiet.
I raised my head from the chair back and opened my eyes to the view. The sun had fully set and the river flowed.
Hunt recounted. “I was on a rig out somewhere on the Indian Ocean. The captain told the crew to keep going. ‘Keep on drilling,’ he said. Later on when they salvaged the drill I got to see it for myself, burned up. It’s hot down there, beneath all the water in the ocean. Ain’t that something, I thought. Most civilizations I’ve encountered had that figured out, except they didn’t have drills. You go down, down, down. A burning lake, burning river, sometimes there’s a goofy lookin’ boogeyman in a canoe floating in it. It’s always fire. There is a great big burning ball of gas stuck in the sky, but they all figured the hottest place was beneath ‘em. I’ve heard my body weight in theories from the erudite, but how do you think they came to know the center of the world is on fire?” he asked turning to me.
Seeing his expression, I hedged, “Maybe you should ask someone else.”
“I will. When I see ‘em.” He waited for my answer.
“Maybe the dirt felt hot?”
“Mm,” he chuckled.
“Why don’t you ask me stuff like that?” Violet complained, playing with the button on his western shirt.
“Research. That one is the only thing I’ve been wrong about.” I made a humored sound. A scandalized petri dish.
Violet clipped back. “You weren’t wrong about me, at first? You didn’t think I was a vapid, yet stunning fashion industry girl?”
“I came right up to your door and took off all your pretty little clothes, didn’t I?” he said. Vi smiled wide.
“I believe I did most of the undressing. Now just admit it. You do own a tuxedo, don’t you?” Her lip curved into a smile, unveiling her slim-girl dimple. Hunt rolled his eyes. “What about just the bowtie? Cummerbund? Please don’t let it be a cummerbund.”
They went on teasing a few minutes more. I went to my phone on its charger beside my bed and had a text from Daniel saying he and Tristan were in route. I sat and took deep breath. It was time to get messy. And pushy. When I returned, Vi and Hunt were gone. The chairs and table back in place. Their flirtation reaching a fever pitch, I guessed. I resealed the patio door and waited for Daniel, leaning against my cabinet frames.
Daniel knocked on the door before long, carrying Tristan in one arm, deep asleep. I watched Daniel carry him into the bedroom and lay Tristan down. We emerged from his room, closing the door behind.
I’d spent that day alone at my studio. When I went outside to take the trash, there was a Portuguese couple arguing. They were arguing over a colorful map as she typed words into her phone, struggling to translate the English. I don’t know Portuguese, but I knew they were tourists looking for a place and he was set in his mind. He laid out their route. She was trying to convince him to go back, or restart, or perhaps ask. I watched them bicker for a while, leaning against a meter. He ended up folding the map and following her. Inside my showroom, I sat on my work stool in thought for a while. I’d signaled wordlessly for Daniel to follow into my demolition zone kitchen. I looked up now at Daniel.
“I have something I want to say to you,” I started, avoiding his eyes at first. “I’ve been thinking so much. We haven’t been in sync since the day we met, but still there is something there. I tried picturing my life today, what I want out of it and the future, but I can’t. I can only think about you, and what we do have, and what that might mean. I don’t have the answers on this, and you said it’s not heartbreak, but I don’t know if that’s true. I know I can’t imagine my life without you in it now,” I paused, bracing myself. “Daniel, I have something I want to tell you.”
“Don’t say it,” he commanded, stepping forward. I froze, three words trapped by his angry eyes pinning them back.
He rushed forward. “Do not lie to me. Did you think I wouldn’t know?” he cut me off, coming flush. His hands grabbed my face, scorching me. “I have seen these eyes overflowing with what you were about to say. Enough to drown a man. You would betray that, just to get your rocks off?” His nostrils flared with each breath.
“I am sorry,” I told him, the wrong three words. I felt myself get weepy.
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” he repeated fiercely, coming back to himself, stepping backwards. “I should not react.”
My eyes darted around the kitchen. “I’m so sorry.” For lying. But it hadn’t felt like a lie. Not completely. I wanted him, yes. But I also wanted to be the girl he gave the world-bending look for on the stairs today. Not the look he gave me, the one I saw withheld—because I wasn’t that girl. I didn’t even have the potential to be. I wanted him to fold up his map. I wanted to point to the place I thought we could get if I said it out loud. Even in the bullshit he’d beset us in. Even though I would be mocked for walking with him. If I told him where I wanted to go. I would even take following him to this place, until we found it together, but he wasn’t interested in being my lead anymore. I wanted to disappear. Please, let me disappear. He only stared down harder. I closed my eyes hoping he would be gone when they opened.
“Go to your closet,” he ordered softly. I looked up. My heart stopped batting around like a frantic birdling. His eyes were crestfallen, as he licked his lips. I followed instruction and went there silently.
He closed the door to the closet, shutting out any light. “Take off your pants. Put your hands there,” he instructed me. I turned around, placing my hands on the shelf. I could hear him unfastening. “Bend.”
“What do I—” I began excitedly.
“Don’t speak.” Several moments passed. I felt him press the entry, but he didn’t move to enter. My head fell forward then up at the rack of clothes, blinking uselessly in the dark. Maybe he wanted me to start. I pressed back, hard.
When we were done, his hands lingered gripping my hips, stalling me from withdrawal and I bit my lip. The only sound was my breath. “Say something,” I pleaded, panting. It was too dark to see him and I didn�
�t try.
“I love you,” he said, like the words might release him. They did his body. He reassembled himself and light broke into the closet, onto the orderly lines of my hanging clothes. He paused as he filled the light. “Lock the door when I’m gone.”
I dressed, still dazed and high from the sex. My hands uneven from the waves. Thinking of what I’d just done. Rock bottom, it turned out, isn’t a place to land. It’s not there to break falls. It is a place you survive. A place you dwell when the damaged thing inside you accepts those rocks over the clouds. In the absence of the clouds—without the faith to fly—rock bottom was a place that welcomed a battered heart that didn’t know how to ask for a home. Introspectively, I knew I wasn’t unfamiliar in this place and that if I’d had the ability to pour my heart out sooner, it wouldn’t have been a golden flow of poetry brimming with sonnets. It would have looked like this; hard and heavy and marbled in gray.
But I did what I always do, what I’ve always done. I did what is probably the secret to life most people search for; I kept going.
~o~
We were having breakfast the following Saturday morning. Violet and Hunter showed up seeking orange juice. I let them in.
“Are you my uncle?” Tristan asked Hunt.
“Sure, kid. You gonna share some of those Fruity Pebbles?” he asked, sitting down eyeing his cereal bowl. Violet and I looked at each other. She looked near choking.
I made them some coffee and orange juice since they both took a seat at the table and offered them toast. They were wearing matching silk robes in bold abstract prints. They were both Vi’s size, so Hunt wasn’t leaving much to the imagination.
“Sit like a lady,” she reminded him quietly, and he grunted. “Can you bring me the paper, Bree? It’s on the counter. I should have a good blurb on page six,” she asked. I delivered it and sat with my tea.
“How is Daniel?” I was looking at Hunt.
“Tall. Ornery. Spitting silver,” Hunt said.
“I mean, how is he? I read about his father,” I continued, “I read he isn’t doing well.”
“The paper has better things to write,” Hunt said mildly. It had been in the news earlier that week. Hawk suffered a mysterious ‘medical emergency’ during a flight and was recovering ‘quietly at his estate’. I’d seen the Baird’s ability to control news, so I knew the condition was much worse than indicated. Hunt wasn’t giving anything away. “He had it comin’, darlin’. Don’t think of it.” His eyes were taking me in.
“Dad doesn’t like his dad,” Tristan said. “He wouldn’t let me talk to him. He told me his dad was like Mufasa.” He frowned and spooned some cereal.
“Sometimes we care about people we shouldn’t,” I explained.
“Too deep for 7:00 a.m., Bree. Where have you been all week?” Violet asked. “You haven’t called or replied. Claire told me you’ve been hiding in your workroom locked away.” Her white blonde hair with the blue streak was pushed back in a headband.
“I have a big commission coming due,” I said. “Have you heard from Jill?” I sipped my tea.
“I’m working on our bridesmaid dresses, but she’s struggling. King Agencies still isn’t doing great. I can only do so much to help,” Vi said sadly, flipping pages. She finally found it. She giggled as she read and turned it around to share. “I didn’t make it, but look who did!”
“Nathan? My gosh. Is that really him?” I asked, taking in the photo. Garter belt. Nice.
“The story says he cheated on Nadia, so she sold these photos to the highest bidder,” she said and tsked. “I warned him not to invoke karma.”
She began folding the page and I took it from her. “Daniel.” In the bottom corner was a photo of him at dinner with a woman. She had brown hair cut asymmetrically with tight shiny tan skin. “Who is this?” I asked to no one.
“That’s Charlotte Diaz. That’s the editor of Chic fashion magazine,” Violet said. She’d come to stand behind my chair. “What is he doing with the editor of Chic? Are they eating?”
“It says it was a lunch date,” I said, scanning the picture. She was a few years older than him. And very beautiful. I could feel Vi’s eyes reading the article from over my shoulder.
“It says they’re doing more than that,” she said, and both our eyes darted to Tristan. I’d read it.
“What’s that?” Hunt interrupted. He was staring at me. “That. What’s wrong with you?” he asked sternly. Tristan’s head swiveled from us confused.
“Nothing,” I furrowed my brow. I folded the paper and Vi moved back.
“That wasn’t nothing,” he said. “Liar.”
“Hunter!” exclaimed Vi.
I looked up at both of them. “I think my sticker doesn’t know how to puff right, but I think it’s getting puffy,” I admitted. “I think it’s maybe been that way, but it’s just not all the way right.”
“Well the surface you’ve picked isn’t so friendly to stickers,” Vi defended me, reluctant, crossing her arms. Hunt sat still.
“I didn’t pick,” I said. “I’m not picking. It stuck on its own.”
“Mom?” Tristan asked.
I looked up, lifting my brows. “Yes, honey.”
“Can I have some stickers?” he asked, eyes sparking like sliced lime.
Hunt laid a hand on his head. “Kid, you’ll get plenty in due time,” he said, sounding like it was a fate worse than death.
“Mommy always has one for you, Tristan. It’s perfect,” I said. He came to my seat and sat my lap.
They left, and Hunt had that pity thing in his eyes. He shouldn’t feel sorry for me. Of all the nights and days of my life I didn’t remember, I wished last weekend, in my closet with Daniel, would join them in the void. I stayed in my workshop because my hands needed to stay busy. Not calling Daniel or staring at my phone imagining phone calls. Not thinking of him. Not thinking of what an awful person I had become. I was especially dreading dropping Tristan off tonight. Not that I minded that he was going to spend the night again. Daniel had sent me an email this week. It was short but polite. The only email I’d personally replied to this week—I said yes.
After breakfast we walked to karate. Then I took a cab to Harlem for a quick trip. As soon as I left Solomon’s office to visit with Justine, it started pouring rain. I ran inside the first store I could find to wait out the downpour. I heard another squeaking customer come in the bodega as I perused the snacks, looking for something to purchase in exchange for shelter. The shoes squeaked nearer and the chip rack revolved, I glanced up.
“Hello, stranger,” Jeremy walked around the rack in greeting, giving me a drenched hug. His blonde hair was wild like he’d shaken his hair out.
“I didn’t think you recognized me,” I said, awkwardly returning the hug. When we initially made eye contact over the rack of chips, he had a defensive look. Maybe I’d startled him.
“That’s silly,” Jeremy replied through a grin. “Who could forget you?”
“Well, it was good seeing you, Jeremy.” I set down my chocolate, ducking to leave. There were still cabs out.
“Wait.” He laid a soft hand on my elbow. “It’s kinda something, us running into each other like this. What brings you to this side of town?”
“Picking up a gift from a friend.” Justine had come back from a cruise. She’d brought back a toy for Tristan, so I jetted to get it while he was at his lesson. ‘No grandkids to spoil of my own yet,’ she’d complained. I pulled out the toy from the bag, a mouse in a sailor hat, then dropped it back in. “Is this your neighborhood?”
“Nah, I’m pounding the pavement today. I was at an audition next door.” He brightened.
“That’s right,” I said, thinking this was unlikely street for an audition. “How’s the career change?”
“Good.” His thick blonde eyebrows sloped down over dusk blue eyes, raising high in the center causing ribbons of creases in his forehead, looking vulnerable. “You know, it’s a big risk throwing yourself into your passi
on, but the rewards will come.”
“Good things come to those who wait.” I offered the platitude unconvincingly.
Jeremy smiled straight white teeth that revealed some of his upper gums, and his eyebrows rose. “My friends and I are going out to see a band play tonight. You remember Regal and Marcy? You should come meet up. It’s out in Bushwick. Here. Let me give you the address,” he offered, looking down to the phone in my bag expectantly.
It was the first time in a long time since someone had approached me, without wanting to discuss Daniel or my friends, absent of chatty opinions or insinuation. He was behaving like he’d missed all the coverage completely. I felt like the old me.
“Sure,” I decided after a moment. I handed him my phone. He typed it in and handed it back looking happily energized.
“I’m glad we ran into each other, Bree. Text me. I’ll meet you outside. I’ve got an extra ticket for you,” he said, grinning and headed to the checkout with his chips. I waved. My phone buzzing inside my purse.
“Hey, hooker,” Jill said and paused. “Time to nix that nickname.”
“Time to nix it,” I agreed. I paced the candy aisle. “I saw you got an early birthday gift in the paper today.”
She snorted. “Don’t you love when everything starts going your way?”
“You sound happy for more than just the article,” I commented. She sounded weightless.
“The venue is booked, I found the perfect dress, and King Agencies is about to reboot. Vi and I are meeting with Chic about a feature on her and me. We’re being included in their Ten Women of the Moment. Nathan is far in my rear view,” she expressed.
I paused in the aisle, toeing the linoleum. “You deserve it, Jill. You’ve worked hard.”
“I saw Daniel, too. I love Charlotte Diaz. She is a killer. But I can’t see those two….”
“Me either.” I swallowed. “He still talks to Kate, Jill.”
Jill was shocked. “Kate the Worst? Wicked Witch of Manhattan!”
“I looked at his phone once, accidentally. I didn’t look hard.” I saw his face on my pillow. “She messaged him. It was quote or a poem of some kind.”
In the Land of Milk and Honey Page 40