Anything

by Michael Baron

  Finally, I turned back toward the living room. Sometimes, when I got the chance to look at the place with fresh eyes, it still surprised me to see how thoughtfully appointed the apartment was now. Every now and then, I expected to find the pizza boxes and mismatched furniture that had decorated my home before Melissa moved in. I, of course, complained when she had Goodwill pick up the old stuff – some of it cost a huge amount of money even if it wasn’t tasteful – but I think both of us knew that I was only doing this out of some sense of bachelor obligation.

  We wouldn’t be living here much longer. When we returned from our honeymoon in Taormina, it would be time to start looking for a bigger place. Not a condo, not a townhouse, but a real home with offices for both of us, and a guest bedroom, and a backyard where Melissa could raise a garden. Melissa would get to decorate each room as she desired with her innate sense of how things went together. My only caveat was that the den would be mine and I could fill it my way, with a pool table, jukebox and the 1950s Coke machine that a friend promised to sell me. Maybe a basketball hoop on the driveway also. That was as far as I went, though. Even I understood that I wouldn’t want to live in a house that I decorated. The truth was that I never really lived in this place until Melissa came along.

  I deposited the mail on the coffee table and grabbed the remote, flipping to CNN. Wars on multiple fronts, some of which the US was involved in and some we were only being implicated in, more bracing news about the economy – and then a feature about a juggling chimpanzee. They all looked vivid (the wars perhaps too much so) on my sixty-inch flatscreen. The decor was Melissa’s, but the electronics were mine, from the video system to the audio system to the computers. Mine, too, were the papers littering the floor in the spare bedroom that served as my office for now. Friends would ask why the door to the room was closed and I would tell them it was by order of Inspector Melissa of the Health Department. A full quarantine was in effect to prevent contagion to the rest of the apartment.

  I walked into the kitchen and drew copper-bottomed pots from the cupboard. In this household, cooking was governed by a simple rule: whoever came home first made dinner. I didn’t always enjoy cooking. Why slave over a hot stove for two hours to create a meal you eat in ten minutes, when a simple phone call brings whatever you want to your door in fifteen? If the task was more enjoyable now, it wasn’t just because home cooking tasted better, but also because it was fun to cook along with and for Melissa. Sometimes we entertained friends at dinner, and sometimes we just entertained ourselves. But it was in fact, now, entertaining. There were even times during the day when I thought about what I might make us to eat that night.

  I stopped a minute to go back into the living room when I heard an announcement of live footage of police officers chasing bank robbers. The entire thing was really a pointless exercise; the robbers stood no chance of getting away, especially if HD cameras were following them. But I guess this was their fifteen minutes of fame, something to share with the other inmates years from now.

  I went back to the kitchen and started chopping garlic. The local farmers markets opened the week before, bringing fresh tomatoes for marinara sauce instead of red supermarket rocks. I knew Melissa would be able to tell the difference.

  While I got things started, the cat came into the kitchen. “Hello, Wizard,” I said to the animal who contemplated me with perfect feline indifference. “Don’t worry. Mommy will be home soon.” Wizard was my cat, a stray my friends somehow convinced me to take in; a temporary lapse of reason on my part. I never liked cats much, and this stuck-up little dictator, for whom I had to pay pet rent to the apartment complex, didn’t change that point of view. Somehow, though, we managed to coexist until Melissa moved in. Between them, however, it was love at first sight; I even felt a little jealous over Wizard’s affections for Melissa. Life is nothing if not complicated.

  Wizard rubbed against my leg, leaving a piece of his furry self on my pants. “Understood, master,” I said as I filled his bright blue bowl with food. The cat ate and then slinked off. I had served my purpose.

  About forty-five minutes later, Melissa opened the door and inhaled the aroma of simmering tomato sauce. “Mmm,” she said in an exaggerated swoon as she came over to kiss me. “I love a man who cooks.”

  “That’s funny; my mother always told me women love men who eat.”

  “And you certainly have a natural talent for that.” She nuzzled my neck. “Although it doesn’t show.”

  Not breaking contact, I put the pasta into a pot of rapidly boiling water and then squeezed her close to me. “I may not look so good in a few weeks. I’m going to have to live in the gym after all the Italian food we’ll be feasting on.”

  “I’ll just have to make sure you get your aerobic exercise while we’re in Italy,” she said seductively.

  “Promise?”

  “Absolutely.” She gave me another kiss on the neck and then a feather-light one on my ear. The water on the stove boiled over and Melissa chuckled. “Temperature too high?”

  “I’ll say.”

  It wasn’t a bad meal. I can boil spaghetti with the best of them. As usual, I finished my portion first and went back for seconds. Melissa continued to chew hers slowly. She cooked with gusto, but she always ate very deliberately.

  “I’m really looking forward to getting a bigger kitchen,” I said over a forkful of pasta buried under a snowfall of Parmesan. “I can’t wait to get rid of this apartment. No more apartment living ever. No more elevator rides where we stop on every floor. No more upstairs neighbors’ kids jumping up and down and shaking our ceiling.”

  When Melissa had something important to say, she shook her hair like a cat drying itself, then brushed away the hair piled on her shoulder. “Ken, we keep talking about buying a house, and a big one sounds nice. But I’ve decided that it’s not that important. It’s not where you live but whom you live with that counts. I don’t want our marriage to be founded on material things. This apartment is more than enough for us. I can live in the back seat of our car.”

  “Melissa, you may marry me for better or worse, but one thing I can promise you is that you will never end up sleeping in the back of a car. Not to mention that our car happens to be an Audi A7.”

  She smiled and looked a tiny bit embarrassed. No one would ever accuse Melissa of crass materialism, but she did like nice things. I saw nothing wrong with that. If you gave as much to the world as Melissa gave, you had every right to surround yourself with as much luxury as you could afford. Still, I sometimes think she believed the eight-year-old Saturn she used to drive before we got together was more appropriate for her than the car we drove now.

  After dinner, Melissa loaded the dishwasher. That was the other part of our deal: whoever didn’t cook cleaned up. I wrapped my arms around her while she did so and kissed her shoulders while she attempted to finish the job.

  “I’ve been hungering for you since lunchtime,” I said.

  “Only that long?” She turned to face me, running damp hands through my hair. I drew her as close to me as I possibly could, pressing myself against the curves and grooves of a body I had memorized completely. She shifted slightly and even this tiny movement sent my senses reeling.

  “No, not only that long. I’ve been insatiable for you since the day we met.”

  Slowly, she began unbuttoning my shirt. My hands reached under her blouse and ran up the smooth contours of her back.

  “Insatiable,” she said in that dreamy voice that told me that passion was beginning to overtake her. She pulled my shirt free of my waistband and ran a hand down my chest. I tried to think of something clever to say and then realized that doing so was absolutely pointless. I too was now somewhere else entirely. Her fingernails played across the lower regions of my stomach and my mind reeled. I kissed her deeply and let myself fall into her. Nothing ever felt as fulfilling as surrendering myself completely to Melissa.
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br />   Later that night, as she lay in my arms sleeping, I wondered how it was possible that this had happened to me. I never dreamed of a woman like Melissa. I never believed it was possible that a person could make me feel the way she did. As I kissed her hair and settled my head against hers, though, I knew one thing for sure. I could never live without her. Now that she was here, now that she showed me what life could be like with a partner who thrilled me and challenged me and inspired me, I could never be satisfied with anything else.

  I pulled her just a little tighter to me and felt immensely thankful that we would always be together.

  Chapter 3

  A Light All Their Own

  Why was there never anybody here?

  Normal businesses have customers, casual shoppers, and little bells that ring when someone enters the store. I had visited Stephon’s for two years, and in all that time I never saw another soul shop there, or even venture to peek in the window. It was as if the Flying Dutchman reached port and went into retail. It was more than a little spooky, but that spookiness also conferred an aura of buried treasure waiting to be revealed. Stephon’s was a special secret, one we never shared with friends. We always deflected questions about the beautiful jewelry Melissa wore by saying things like, “We picked it up here and there.”

  We discovered Stephon’s at the end our third date when, well-fed and content, we wandered the Adams Morgan section peeking at the menus taped to the windows of ethnic eateries. The savory smell of stewed lamb drew us to a Greek café, and a gleam of metal attracted my eye to a gold plate in the window of a shop tucked into a hole in the wall below it. The plate was hypnotic, engraved with an intricate design of squares and circles that appeared random but formed a sophisticated pattern hovering at the edge of recognition.

  “Let’s check this place out,” I said.

  Melissa peered down toward the shop. “Is it open?” The windows were dark and dusty, although there seemed to be faint light inside.

  “Let’s find out.”

  “If you want.”

  Something in her voice made me look at her. At this point, we were still learning to pick up each other’s signals. “Is that okay? You told me you liked handmade jewelry.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “This place seems a little forbidding.”

  I looked back at the store. It was dingy, which probably meant there was little more than junk inside. “You’re right. Let’s keep walking.”

  I started to move, but Melissa held her place. “No, let’s go in.”

  “You sure?”

  She smiled. “There probably aren’t any demons in there.”

  We made our way down the steps, our shoes crackling on discarded potato chip bags. Something sticky tugged at my soles. As I opened the door, I expected a dark interior and a musty smell.

  So where did the light come from?

  It wasn’t the bright fluorescence of store lights that leave green rings when you close your eyes. Nor little spotlights that artfully illuminate the contents of display cases. The display cases in this shop didn’t need lamps. They shined with a light all their own.

  We passed through an enchanted metal forest of gold, silver and jade, every object shining with its own radiance. Bracelets and necklaces lay beside plates of great age and polished with even greater care. Was I in a jewelry store or on an archaeological dig? A white square on the wall caught my eye. It was like ivory but whiter, inlaid with some smoky blue stone that might have been lapis lazuli. The stones spelled a name in rough letters; STEPHON’S, it read. I turned to Melissa and saw that her gaze was as transfixed as a pilgrim at the foot of a shrine. It was then that I learned just how much Melissa really loved jewelry. I already knew she looked down on ostentatious displays of wealth, but to her, a gold bracelet was necessity.

  “I think I’m in heaven,” she said with wonder.

  “We’re definitely not on Earth,” I said sarcastically, though I had to admit to myself that I was fascinated. Very few stores ever affected me this way. Browsing was a way to pass the time, not an avocation. This was someplace special, though. I knew I wouldn’t be leaving here without buying Melissa something.

  It turned out to be something small – we were only on our third date, after all, though I already knew in my heart that this was the real thing – just a simple pair of silver earrings. Melissa beamed and put them on immediately. When we left the shop and continued our walk, she stopped in several windows to get a look at her earrings in the reflection.

  “Am I shimmering?” she said.

  “You light up the night.”

  She turned to me and touched me on the cheek. “I might just hold on to you.”

  My first birthday gift for Melissa came from Stephon’s, as did her first Valentine’s Day gift from me, and gifts for just about every occasion imaginable, including a few I invented on the spot. I went back there enough times to fill Melissa’s jewelry box like Fort Knox and send Stephon’s kids to private school.

  That morning, wedding plans swirling in my mind, I ducked into the low doorway yet again, pausing for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the singular light. As always, Stephon was absorbed in some task, this time bending over a table behind the rear counter as he polished a stone necklace. He looked up at me and smiled, his long, narrow face bisecting as he did so. Though he probably wasn’t any older than fifty, Stephon always struck me as wizened. He needed several good meals. A little sunlight probably wouldn’t hurt him either.

  He turned back to his necklace and I began my search. For a store with no customers, inventory had a way of appearing and disappearing almost in the blink of an eye. It was absolutely impossible to guess what you would find there, and pointless to go to the store with a particular item in mind. So I carefully peered among the tall display cases glittering with silver in the center of the shop. I bent over the gold in the counter showcase. Shapes and colors twinkled and beckoned. Through the sunken front windows, passing cars flickered in reflections from the display cases.

  I would know what I wanted when I saw it. But what would it be? Among these bright baubles was the last gift I would give Melissa before we said our vows. I wanted it to tell her how much I cherished our courtship and how much I welcomed our marriage. Of course, she knew these things already, but I wanted something that would mark the passage, something separate from the ring I would place on her finger in less than two weeks.

  “You always look so fascinated,” Stephon said. I turned to find him regarding me carefully from across the counter.

  “It’s hard not to be when I’m in here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome.” I walked over to a display of carved onyx.

  “And what is today’s occasion?”

  “Melissa and I are getting married the Saturday after next,” I said, not taking my eye off the display. Not a single one of these items had been here the last time I visited the shop. “I want to get her one more pre-wedding gift.”

  “Then this is unquestionably a very special occasion.”

  “Which makes picking something out just a little more of a challenge.”

  Stephon laughed softly. “Take your time. Take all the time you need. Excuse me a minute.”

  I looked up to see Stephon walk into the back room, then my eyes lit on a sapphire necklace. Blue, like the depthless blue of Melissa’s eyes. I imagined her wearing the necklace and how her eyes would sparkle as a result. It was a curious image. Melissa’s eyes were warm, thoughtful and wise, but I didn’t recall ever seeing them sparkle. She was too put together to sparkle.

  Stephon emerged from the back a short while later with two cups of cappuccino. He approached me and proffered a cup with a perfectly manicured hand. I took it and thanked him, a little surprised by the gesture. The cup and saucer were a delicate shade of robin’s egg blue, inlaid with golden doves. Stephon sipped
and then I did the same. The cappuccino was delicious.

  This entire exchange was unusual. While Stephon had always been pleasant on my many visits, he had never done anything like this before.

  Stephon took a second sip, then peered up at me thoughtfully. “Nothing has caught your eye?”

  “Dozens of things have caught my eye. I find it amazing how this store reinvents itself every time I visit and yet still always fascinates me.”

  “Like a great romance.”

  I chuckled. “Yes, I guess so.”

  “But you still haven’t found anything for your special present.” Stephon took one more sip of his coffee and I did the same, finishing the cup. “Why do you think that is?”

  I shook my head and looked around the room. “Like I said, we’re getting married. Of course I’ll buy Melissa gifts when we’re married – trust me, you’ll get a steady stream of business – but this is the last chance I have to buy her a gift as her fiancé. Don’t ask me why, but that puts extra pressure on this. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Melissa, but I’ll never again get to present her a gift not as her husband, but as someone who wants to be her husband. That requires something even more special than usual. Something fantastic.”

  His eyes grew just a tiny bit wider when I said that, and for a moment he glanced down at the floor. When he looked back up, his gaze held me as though he was seeing me in an entirely different way. “Something even more special than usual, you say. Something fantastic.” He nodded, as though he just imparted great wisdom on himself. “You do realize that you have a very special relationship with Melissa, don’t you?”

  Of course I did, but Stephon’s saying so still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I didn’t realize he’d been watching us that closely when we came in. “Yes, I do.”