by Diana Kane
*****
“What has gotten into you?” I pant, trying to catch my breath. Isabella is suddenly insatiable, taking me in my office again before class and pouncing on me as soon as we pull into the garage when we arrive home. I lay on the hood of my car with Isabella on top of me, still staring at me after watching me come.
“Is that a complaint?” She lowers her head and starts kissing her way down my exposed abdomen. As badly as I still ache for her, I stop her.
“What aren’t you telling me?” She tries to stop my questioning by lowering her mouth, but now I’m extremely curious. I slide my bare ass across the hood, the resistance of my flesh against the polished metal not stopping me from moving beyond her reach. I grab my underwear and sweatpants from around my ankles and lift my hips to pull them back into place. Isabella stands up with a defeated look on her face.
“Come on, let’s make dinner.”
“I’m not going to eat until you tell me what’s going on.” It’s my one piece of leverage, I know I won’t be strong enough to deny her sex all night. Isabella stops and shoots me an incredulous look. “I’m serious Isabella. Do you think I’m going to have any kind of appetite knowing that there’s something that you’re avoiding talking to me about?”
“I do want to talk to you. Let’s go inside.” Isabella grabs her suitcase from the back seat and extends her hand to me. I take it, but it does little to alleviate the anxiety that’s closing in on me with every passing second. I’ve never seen the confident, self-assured Isabella reduced to the uncertainty and nervousness that stands before me. “Please sit in the den, I will be right in.” I seat myself on the sofa and wait, my leg bouncing up and down, my hands seeking anything to fidget with. My anxiety mixes with fear, tightly coiling around my stomach and chest, making every inhalation a struggle. Unable to sit anymore, I start pacing, massaging my tightening sternum, so lost in my own head that the sound of ice hitting glass makes me jump. Isabella enters the den with a drink in each hand. We stop and stare at each other and I see Isabella taking in the emotions that I’m certain are laid bare on my face. I watch as she deposits the two tumblers on the coffee table before eliminating the space between us, enveloping me in a tight embrace.
“Baby, please calm down. I love you.” I wrap my arms around her but can’t release the tension from my body. “Sara, please take a deep breath.” I fight the mental constraints and manage to suck a lungful of air in. “Please, come sit with me.” I let her lead me back to the sofa and accept the offered drink once I’m seated, downing half of it in one go.
“Please Isabella, what is it?” She takes a deep breath as her eyes search mine, the anxiety and fear quickly returning. Every conversation that begins with ‘we need to talk’ or ‘I need to talk to you’ always ends with the earth falling out from under your feet. ‘I care about you, but,’ ‘maybe if you focused on work a little less,’ ‘your mother is sick.’ Nothing good ever comes from someone telling you that they need to talk.
“Is what we have enough for you?” There it is. This is how it begins, or perhaps ends. I feel the tears well up, distorting my vision, as I fight to stay composed, to keep breathing. Isabella starts rattling off words in Spanish, her palm on her forehead between her eyes. She sounds frustrated, but I have no idea what she’s saying. “Shit, I’m sorry. That did not come out right. Come here.” She wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck and holds me. “You’re not making this easy for me. I need to say this. Please just listen with an open mind and let me speak.” I nod my head against her shoulder, trying to calm myself. “I love you, Sara. Perhaps a part of me has known since you sat down at my bar that day. I’m never happier than when I’m with you. I’m also never more depressed than when one of us has to leave. I cry in the parking lot when you leave, I cry in the airport bathroom when I leave. It tears me apart every time. I thought it would get easier, but it doesn’t.” Isabella stops speaking, and I’m unsure if she’s waiting for me to say something or just organizing her thoughts. I can’t speak right now, even though I know how she feels, it’s the same for me every time. So I do what I can do, I wrap my arms around her a little tighter, hoping she will continue. “I want to be with you, Sara. Not like we are now, but really be with you. I hate not knowing when I’ll get to hold you again, to kiss you good morning, to simply reach out and be able to touch you. It’s so difficult not having the simple things that most couples get to take for granted. I want to move here to be with you. I don’t want an answer now, I want you to think about it.” All of her words and sentiments coupled with my anxiety slow my processing of what she just said. My head jerks off of her shoulder as I look at her in disbelief when I finally catch up.
“You what?” I must have misheard something.
“I want to move here to be with you.” She says it again, and I know there’s been no mistake. I sit there, speechless, trying to process what she just laid on me. “Why do you think my parents want to meet you?”
“I…I don’t…” My synapses have suddenly taken a leave of absence, refusing to formulate thoughts into words.
“Oh Sara, my frequents trips here, taking extended days off at the bar, hiring a new bartender and getting her trained, taking you to the lagoon all those times. My family isn’t blind, plus we’re very open. They know all about you.”
“They do? The lagoon? New bartender?” My mind is suddenly on information overload. I’m amazed I can form sentence fragments at this point.
“Of course they do. Do you think I take random women to my family estate? There have only been two women that I’ve taken there. Esme never appreciated it the way that you do, she never wanted to go back. They’re very intuitive, they put all the pieces together when I hired the new bartender and had her trained right away.” So much information is coming my way right now that I feel overwhelmed, thrilled and sad all in the same breath. Isabella looks at me, concern clearly written on her face. “Is this not something that you want?”
“I do, of course, I do. I’ve even thought about it, but…” I trail off unable to give voice to all my concerns.
“But what?” Isabella now looks slightly frightened, unsure of what I’m thinking.
“I thought about moving there, opening a practice, starting over, but I can’t see it. I’m selfish, I know, but when I try to picture that part of moving I can’t. I can see myself living there with you, but I can’t see myself giving up my work here. The images never line up. For that reason alone I cannot ask you to give up everything to be with me here.” I drop my head because I know I’m likely closing the coffin on our relationship.
“You did not ask me, I asked you, I wanted to see if you feel the same. It seems that you do. I could buy a place and move here next week without telling you. What would you do then?” She pauses, waiting for me to answer, yet my words still elude me. “I’m not giving anything up. I’m not losing anything. My family is there, I’m not losing them. It’s easier to be away from them than it is you, that is what I know. I’m not losing my ownership of the resort, and I can paint anywhere. I really want to paint near you, for you to be the first person to see my work. I’m not losing anything, but I stand to gain a great deal.”
“But how can you be ok with that decision after I just told you that I can’t make the same choices to be with you?”
“Sara, you are a dedicated woman who is passionate about her work. I saw it with my own eyes at the expo that day. You will never be done with your work, even if you tried to be, it won’t happen. You could reduce your patient load and finish your obligations here, but there will always be that next person who needs your help, and I know you won’t be able to say no. Your compassion and dedication are two of the things I love the most about you. To take that away from you would kill off a part of who you are. I never want to see that.”
“What if you miss your family? What if something happens and we don’t work out?”
“If I miss them I’ll go visit. If we don’t work out
then, I’ll move back there. What if I don’t move here? Is this going to get easier for you?”
“No.” I know with absolute certainty that it will only get harder.
“Have you thought about the fight we will have to get you a green card, or a visa, or to have you naturalized?”
“That will not be an issue.” How can she believe that it won’t be an issue? Does she not understand that they are monitoring illegals more and more every day? “Sara, I was born in Texas. My parents came here to visit some family while my mother was pregnant. I was their first child, and they knew things would never be the same after I was born. It was a last hurrah sort of trip. She was supposed to be fine to travel, and everything seemed to be in order. Then something happened, and things were not ok anymore. The pregnancy was suddenly deemed high risk, and she was placed on bedrest until I was born. So you see, I’m already a citizen, I never renounced it. How do you think I was planning to move to New York?”
“I hadn’t thought.” I really hadn’t. That piece of knowledge was given as part of a larger picture, I never stopped to dissect the entire scenario.
“I want this Sara, but I want you to want it as well. I don’t need an answer right now. I want you to think about it.”
“How long do I have? How long are you here?”
“Take as long as you need. I’ve already started looking into a few places for ideas, but nothing more. As for how long I’m here…”
“Please tell me you aren’t leaving tomorrow.” Right now I know I can’t handle Isabella leaving so soon.
“I don’t have a return flight booked. I was going to see how you felt about me flying back with you for the holiday.”
“That would be like a whole month together!”
“Close. It would also allow us to see what this looks like in the cold light of day, when you’re working, and we each have other things going on.”
“What happens if I can’t say yes. Are we over?” I might as well know what I’m looking at, have all the information to make a decision with.
“If you say no then we keep trying like we have been, and I’ll rack up a lot of frequent flyer miles. I don’t want to be away from you.” I should be on the moon right now with joy, yet I can’t shake the feeling that I’m taking her away from her family, asking her to give up everything, even though she’s offering and has thought about it. “I know I just threw a lot of information at you. Please just consider it.”
“I will, I promise.” I already know that I can’t say yes, I can never put my happiness above hers.
“Do you want me to go?” The question sends a bolt of panic through me, making me clutch Isabella tightly to me.
“I want you to stay. Fly back with me.” I know I’m being selfish, that this is a mistake. It will only give Isabella the idea that I’m going to say yes, and show me what it would be like to have her here permanently, making it that much harder for me to tell her no.
Chapter 26
We pull into Catherine and Alex’s house for their early Thanksgiving party. Given that they will be in California visiting Taylor and Nikki, while Abby and I will be in Punta Cana on our own vacations, everyone agreed we should hold it early. Isabella and I grab our pie and pumpkin roll contributions as well as our overnight bag and head inside. Catherine promptly greets us and takes my keys, as expected.
“Katrina is planning on being here. I hope that won’t be an issue.” Catherine looks between Isabella and me, waiting for one of us to answer.
“It’ll be fine,” Isabella answers. I can tell she’s irritated, but the anger that usually accompanies the mention of Katrina isn’t there.
“Good. Alex.” Alex quickly heads towards us, wrapping her arms around Catherine’s waist when she joins us.
“Hey ladies, welcome.” Catherine gives Alex a brief kiss before taking the desserts from me.
“Alex, could you put them in one of the guest rooms please?”
“Yes dear,” Alex teases her before directing us to follow her, even though I already know which of the guest rooms she’s leading us to.
“Can we have a minute Alex? We’ll be right out.” I make the request as we deposit our bag in our room for the night.
“Sure. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She winks before turning for the door.
“That doesn’t exactly take much off the table then, does it?” I can’t help but play the game with her.
“Nope,” she responds as she closes the door. I immediately turn to face Isabella and wrap my arms around her waist.
“Are you really ok knowing Katrina will be here?”
“I’ve had time to think about this. You two were friends before things happened. If nothing had happened maybe I wouldn’t be with you right now. All of your friends call her their friend. I’m going to trust everyone’s judgment and assume there’s a decent person in there somewhere. All of you can’t be wrong.”
“Thank you.” Has Isabella really thought about everything while we’ve been apart?
“That doesn’t mean I’m ready to be her friend, I’ll simply tolerate her presence for now. Besides, if I do end up living here it seems I’ll be seeing plenty of her.” There it is, the topic we haven’t mentioned since last week when we talked. It sits like a giant pink elephant in our silences, mocking me, taunting me for what I’m certain I’m going to lose, the one person I’ve been happier with than anyone else, ever.
“We should probably join the others,” I whisper, feeling the stress creeping toward the surface.
“Not just yet,” she informs me before pressing her lips to mine. Things have shifted this week. Our lovemaking, while just as frequent, has a certain sadness to it, like each time is a countdown to the end. It’s tender and emotional. I can’t help but wonder if it’s the same for Isabella. If it is, she hasn’t let on. I kiss her with everything that I have, I want her to know that I love her, to know that the decision I haven’t given her isn’t one I’ve made lightly.
“I can’t promise you we’ll make it out of this room if we don’t leave now.” Isabella smiles before releasing me and leading us back to the party.
The party is in full swing, and in typical fashion, there’s plenty of alcohol for everyone. Isabella makes us each a drink, and when I take my first sip, I realize it’s the first drink she ever made for me, the unnamed masterpiece. “We need to stock your bar like this,” she whispers against my ear before kissing my cheek. We each have an arm around the other’s waist as we half dance with the song that’s playing.
“Would it be possible to speak to Sara for a few minutes?” Katrina is behind me, Isabella’s body language never betraying that fact.
“That’s up to Sara,” Isabella informs her, allowing me to turn around to face Katrina.
“Give me a few minutes,” I whisper to her before kissing her and letting go of the hand I had grabbed. I follow Katrina to a quiet corner and notice she isn’t drinking as I wait for her to speak.
“I’m sorry if I interrupted your moment, I just thought it would be better to do this before dinner.”
“It’s ok Katrina.” I nearly reach out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but after everything, I stop myself.
“I want you to know that I’m very sorry for everything. I wasn’t honest with you, and I tried to manipulate you. I’m not proud of any of it. I do hope that one day we can be friends again.” I can see the sincerity in Katrina’s expression.
“I do too. How are you doing?” I really do hope we can be friends again one day, but I can’t just jump back to being best friends with her, part of the trust is gone.
“Better, I think. Trying to live life one day at a time. Regretting some of my recent decisions, but learning to live with them.” Is that what I will have to do with Isabella? Regret my decision to not take her away from her family and learn to live with it? I can’t imagine living without her, yet there’s a strong likelihood that it will soon be my reality.
“Is she living he
re now?” I follow Katrina’s eyes to Isabella whose back is to us as she animatedly chats with Abby and Blake.
“No, but she would like to.”
“Really? That’s great news! Why aren’t you celebrating?” I want to believe that Katrina is being sincere, but that little bit of trust that evaporated has me second guessing her sentiments, even if talking with her again is nice.
“We’re still discussing it. You and I once talked about being able to see our futures. I can see mine with her. I don’t see how I can take her away from her family though.” My eyes loiter on Isabella, wishing I could find the answer stamped on her back. Catherine briefly cuts off my eye contact with her and gives me a concerned look.
“You know, relationships are about sacrifice sometimes. It sounds like she’s willing to be further away from them to be with you, you aren’t taking her away. There are planes that go there everyday.” Katrina’s words aren’t anything that I haven’t told myself at least a hundred times this past week. They don’t change a thing.