Sweet Indulgences 1

by Susan Fox

  She slipped out of her seat and into the aisle. Would he move to the left, or to the right? He came out behind her, letting the couple move past him. Then he went in, taking the seat beside Samantha. She sat down just as the lights dimmed.

  It had been a while since she’d sat beside a man in a dark theatre. She’d broken up with Frank six months ago, and he hadn’t been much of a movie fan anyhow.

  Now she found it hard to relax because she was so aware of the smiling man’s presence. He didn’t encroach on her space but his shoulder and arm were only a couple of inches away and when she looked down, she saw his thigh. He was dressed casually in jeans, an open-necked shirt, and a sports jacket, so either he hadn’t come straight from work or he had a job that didn’t require a suit.

  The titles rolled and the man beside her stirred restlessly, distracting her. Then she saw Martha as an adolescent, in her sister’s bedroom, discussing her sister’s impending nuptials. Yes, that was just where the book began. She gave a sigh of satisfaction.

  * * *

  Gabe watched in disbelief as the credits rolled. Martha’s Magnificent Marriage? What the heck was that? No wonder the woman beside him had looked startled when he mentioned thrills and special effects.

  He began to rise, so he could sprint to whichever theatre in this complex was showing Killer Tornado. But if he did, he couldn’t sit in the dark beside the attractive brunette. Killer Tornado versus a woman he would never see again.

  She let out a soft sigh and he knew he was staying. There was something special about her . . .

  He struggled out of his jacket, trying not to bump her. But, as he pulled his arm out of the sleeve, it brushed hers. “Sorry,” he murmured, taking the excuse to lean close.

  She turned toward him and breathed, “It’s all right.” Her breath was minty and her hair smelled like a bouquet of flowers.

  He tried not to groan. If this was a date, he’d have his arm around her by now.

  But she’d been holding a seat for someone—a date, of course. A woman like her had to have a boyfriend. She was so pretty and classy. Long shiny hair, pale oval face, big brown eyes. Tailored gray pants and white shirt. Elegant, yet not snotty. Her smile was genuine; it lit her eyes. Why couldn’t he find a woman like this?

  He wondered about her boyfriend. What jerk—what idiot—would stand this woman up?

  * * *

  The aisle seat had its disadvantages. People began to shove their way past Samantha as the lights came up, and she couldn’t read the credits. She gave a growl of frustration.

  Her neighbor said, “They ought to have a brief intermission so the folks who are in a hurry can leave. Then roll the credits for the people who want to read them.”

  “Excellent idea.” She reached under her seat to collect her purse. “Since I can’t read them, I suppose it’s time to go.”

  They walked up the aisle together and he stayed beside her, shielding her from the jostling crowd, until they reached the street. “Seeing as your companion didn’t show up, can I offer you a lift?” Quickly he added, “I hope I’m not out of line.”

  He was awfully cute and seemed really nice, but she couldn’t accept a ride from a stranger. “No, thanks.”

  He studied her for a minute, his head cocked to one side. Then he pulled his wallet from his pocket and handed it to her. “Look, this is me. My name is Gabe Marino. I’m a veterinarian, I’ve got a library card and a video card, I’m a blood donor. You’ll see photos of my parents and my spaniel, Gus. No wife. I’ve never been married. You’re right to be cautious, but…” He drew a deep breath then said, “I have to come clean. I came here tonight to see Killer Tornado and—”

  “Then why did you stay?” she interrupted.

  His eyes, with those nice crinkly lines around them, met hers. “To be honest, I couldn’t throw away the chance to sit next to you for a couple of hours. And I’d love to spend a little more time with you. But if you don’t feel right about it, I understand.”

  He looked so earnest, so sweet. She glanced inside his wallet and smiled at the gray-haired couple with their arms around each other, the floppy-eared spaniel. She handed the wallet back. “I don’t know you well enough to accept a ride so—”

  “I’ll say goodbye then.”

  “Let me finish. I was going to suggest we chat over a cup of coffee instead.”

  “I’d like to, but what about your boyfriend?”

  She chuckled. “I don’t have one these days. When I go to the movies alone, I put a coat on the seat beside me and pretend I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Oh.” He began to smile, that warm, contagious smile. “And maybe you were waiting for someone.”

  She smiled back. “Maybe I was. Now, what about that coffee?”

  “Great! There’s a nice spot in the next block.”

  He turned and she fell into step beside him. “By the way, I’m Samantha Ward.”

  “Nice name. It suits you.”

  “Thanks. So, Gabe, do you want to talk about the movie? All the, uh, how did it go? Thrills and special effects?”

  He laughed and his shoulder gently bumped hers. “Samantha, tonight’s thrill was meeting you.”

  Evening in Paris

  “A ghost! How intriguing.” Antonio pushes the clutter of dinner dishes aside so he can rest one elbow on the bistro table and prop his chin on his fist. He widens his brown eyes theatrically.

  “I didn’t say it was a ghost.” I chuckle at his expression, and at the thought of a fluffy white Casper-like phantom bouncing along beside my right ear.

  “You said you were being haunted, Leslie darling.”

  “Yes, but not in the Halloween sense of spooks and goblins. It’s more like…” I pause, trying to figure out what, exactly, it is like. “It’s a voice in my head,” I say lamely. “Not my voice, and it’s not really in my head, it’s sort of, uh, pervasive or omnipotent. If I was religious I’d probably compare it to God talking to me.”

  “A voice from on high, making pronouncements?”

  I wrinkle up my nose. “Not so much pronouncements as…evaluations, I guess. Negative ones.”

  “Of you? What a bad-mannered ghost.”

  Part of me is laughing with him, relieved to keep this conversation on a superficial plane. It was crazy to have mentioned the subject. Yet, having done so, a desire to persist is building inside me, a need to analyze the phenomenon and try to explain it to him. If I can’t do this with Antonio, my new and maybe future love, it doesn’t bode well for our relationship. The Voice is significant to my life, as is Antonio.

  He is tipping out the last of the wine, slowly and ceremoniously. I watch mesmerized as a miniature ruby waterfall trickles into the rich, still pond in my glass. When I raise my eyes, Antonio is holding up the empty bottle, his face and gesture a question mark.

  The words that come aren’t his, though. In fact, he can’t even hear them. This time it’s The Voice. Remember you’ve got that meeting first thing in the morning. Best not to over-indulge, or you won’t be on your toes.

  I hadn’t intended to drink any more, precisely because of that meeting, but now I’m belligerent as a thwarted child. I nod brightly at Antonio. “Not a whole bottle, but another glass would be nice.”

  He flags down our waiter, which takes some doing as we’re sitting in the most secluded corner of the crowded bistro. It’s a nasty January night, bitterly cold outside, and when I told the hostess that I wanted to sit as far away from the front door as possible, Antonio charmed her into offering us this lovely nook.

  Our waiter finally responds and I’m quiet, waiting while he clears the table and Antonio places our order. Antonio adjusts the placement of the candle so it’s off to the side of the table, casting a romantic, flickering light rather than shining directly in my eyes.

  When he’s done, I admit to my suspicions. “I think it’s my mother.”

  He frowns slightly; his face telling me he’s feeling guilty for not following the conversati
onal thread. Not that I was stitching a straight, obvious line.

  I help him out. “The Voice. The ghost, as you call her. I’m pretty sure she’s my mother.”

  His mouth forms a silent O. Again I know what he’s thinking, and I know he is hesitant to say it.

  I say it for him. “Yes, she died when I was six. I barely remember her. But I think it must be her voice.”

  “When did she start, uh, talking to you?” He still looks cautious.

  Hush now, girl, or the man will think you’re a fruitcake.

  Shut up, Mom, he already knows. Besides, if I’m crazy, it’s you who’s doing it to me.

  I’m shocked, Leslie. You know I only mean the best for you. You have so very much potential, I just hate to see you wasting yourself, doing ill-considered things, throwing your life away.

  I don’t reply, and The Voice falls silent. What I’m thinking is that she figures I owe her my life. She saved mine, when I was six and ran out in front of a car. She died doing it. She was a heroine and I was the girl who had killed her mother. No-one ever came right out and said it, but I felt it, in everyone’s pain-filled silence. There was no way I could make it up, not to Dad, or my baby sister Jen, or Gran and Gramps. I was just a kid. I couldn’t give them—or make up for—what they’d lost.

  Again, no-one ever said it but I knew, in my heart, that if they’d been able to change history they would have chosen for me to die, not Mom.

  The Voice is quiet. She makes no denial.

  I become aware that Antonio is frowning at me. And fresh glasses of wine have arrived without me noticing.

  He reaches across the table and takes my hand, sandwiching it protectively between his. He’s got wonderful hands, brown and warm, with long elegant fingers and perfectly-shaped fingernails. “Leslie? You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” His voice is as careful and gentle as his touch.

  Now’s the moment. I can make a joke, or I can forge ahead. His face is all concerned attention.

  I take a deep breath and try to explain about my mother’s death, and the aftermath. Even though I make a poor job of it, I can see that Antonio grasps what I’m saying. His gorgeous brown eyes are soft and troubled. When I finish, he says the right words back. All of them. He ends by telling me that he would be desolate if it had been me, not my mother. He actually uses the word “desolate.” He’s so much more expressive than the WASP guys I used to date.

  I smile at him. “You’re the greatest. Have I ever told you?”

  He smiles back, a crooked grin that shows a glint of white teeth. His eyes search my face then he says, “You don’t feel better though, do you?”

  I glance away, then back. We might have a future, I tell myself. I owe honesty, to him and to me.

  “I know—I mean, my brain knows—all those things you told me. I went to a therapist for a year when I was twenty-five, and we worked through my issues and I really thought I’d come to terms with it. I understood that I had to live my life for me, not for Dad, or my dead Mom, or anyone else. I was doing okay.”

  “And then she showed up. Your ghost.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What does she do? Does she scold, or lecture, or what?”

  “She’s got that reasonable voice that parents put on when they think you’re being immature. It’s a ‘for your own good’ approach. She doesn’t say I’m bad, she says she’s disappointed. You know how it goes.”

  He nods sympathetically, though I can’t imagine his mother, the volatile Gianetta, ever speaking in the tone The Voice has perfected.

  “It’s like I can never measure up, not in her eyes. She gave her life for me, and I’m…a disappointment.”

  His eyes flash. “No! Leslie, you can’t think that way. You can’t let her make you feel that way. You’re a marvelous woman, warm and loving, bright, funny, generous. Not to mention beautiful.” He has released my hand so he can use his own to gesture. Sometimes he has trouble expressing himself without using his hands. Now they are thrust forward in a bold, pushing-away gesture.

  My heart fills. “I do adore you, Antonio. I love it that you see me that way.”

  “Anyone who doesn’t is a fool. If your mother was alive, she’d see you that way too.” His eyes squint for a moment as he works something through, then he says firmly, “That voice, your ghost, that’s not your mother. You’ve constructed it, based on all those feelings of inadequacy you experienced in your childhood.”

  “But I worked through that in therapy.”

  He shakes his head vigorously, black curls flying. “You think you did. Maybe you did, at the time. But the fears came back. They just went underground, or got projected, or whatever a therapist would call it, so they got embodied in the mother-ghost.”

  “Hmm.” Can he be right? If he is, why wasn’t I smart enough to realize what I was doing? “I’ve just always figured it had to be her, ever since she started talking to me,” I say hesitantly.

  “Why, Leslie?” He leans forward, encouraging rather than demanding. “Do you recognize her voice, or the kinds of things she says? Was your mother always doing that ‘I’m disappointed in you’ routine when she was alive?”

  “I don’t really remember her. I was too young.” That’s not exactly true. I might remember if I tried. But, given all the trauma about the way she died, remembering always brought so much guilt and pain that I learned, long ago, not to do it.

  “Try, darling. It might help us get this sorted out.”

  The word “us” rings in my head. Antonio’s expression and voice are caring and earnest. I can’t say no.

  I frame my face with my hands and sink into their support as I try to remember. I close my eyes, strive to shut out the presence of noisy strangers, to summon memories. True memories, not visions of the ghost-mother preaching at me.

  As from a distance, Antonio’s voice comes, low and almost hypnotic. “Was she tall or short? What color hair? What did she like to do? Did she wear jeans or dresses? Did she play with you, read to you?”

  I do my best to not resist the memories and to let his voice guide me. Now there’s a scent in my nostrils, elusive, like the image that is floating just out of reach. I concentrate harder. Antonio must see it on my face because he goes quiet. I inhale more deeply, and once I realize it’s perfume I’m smelling, the whole scene pops into my mind, sharp and fresh. I am both observing the curly-headed little girl and being her, being inside her as she watches her mother get ready to go out for the evening.

  Both the Leslies, child and adult, are spellbound.

  I don’t know how long it is before the memory-pictures fade gently to black, leaving me with tears rolling unchecked down my face. I open drenched eyes and stare at Antonio.

  He meets my gaze and waits, silently. He is one of the rare men who isn’t uncomfortable with tears.

  I find a tissue in the pocket of my skirt, blot runny mascara, and blow my nose. Then I reach for his hand. For a moment I just savor the firm, warm grip, the comfort and affection that he transmits.

  “The Christmas before she died, Dad gave her perfume. Not one big bottle, but a lovely little padded box filled with tiny glass vials. Each vial held a different perfume and they had colored beads at each end. There was a key to identifying them—you know, like inside boxes of chocolates? The names were magic. They conjured up exotic, sophisticated images. Who could resist an ‘Evening in Paris’?”

  He smiles appreciatively but doesn’t speak.

  “She and I both loved those miniature perfumes. When she and Dad were going some place special—out dancing, or for dinner—she’d ask me to help her dress. She did it all, all those womanly things. Painted her fingernails and toenails, painted mine too, fussed with her hair, put on real silk stockings and pretty dresses. She’d put on her lipstick really carefully then blot it on a tissue and ceremoniously present me with that one, perfect kiss.

  “The very last thing was the perfume. We’d debate the choices then she’d let me break off the b
right glass bead. She’d put her finger to the end of the vial then touch her pulse points, even the backs of her knees—isn’t that sexy? Then she’d dab a little on my wrists and behind my ears. I’d be sitting on the end of my parents’ bed in my flannelette jammies, with my stubby nails painted, smelling like a sophisticated woman.”

  Antonio’s expression tells me he’s captivated.

  “She wasn’t an old-fashioned woman,” I say. “She was liberated and all that, but she believed you could have a little romance, a little excitement, in the middle of your busy, ordinary life. I remember now. That was her special talent. She made those magic moments happen. Not just for herself, but for me, and Dad, and everyone she cared about.”

  I stare at him, as realization sinks in. “She was like you. You do that too.”

  He smiles delightedly. “Thank you, Leslie. That’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.”

  He’s right. My mother would never have said the things The Voice does. She loved me unconditionally, as Antonio does. To her, I was her perfect little girl, and I just know that if she were alive now, she’d be proud of me.

  I know what I want to say to Antonio. It’s there in my heart. I know how I feel, but I’ve been scared to tell him. Scared to take the risk that he’d find me inadequate, only second-best. In my words and actions I’ve walked the tightrope of caution, flirting at the edges sometimes but always returning to toe its narrow line. Afraid he’d reject me.

  But this is Antonio. I’ve chosen a man who, in the important ways, resembles my mother. I’ve chosen a man who helped me find my mother again, and now I have a treasure trove of loving memories to draw out, one by one, for examination.

  But this isn’t the time for the past. Now it’s my future that’s on my mind.

  I hold my breath, waiting for The Voice to tell me what to do. I hear only silence, but it’s a warm, enveloping silence, throbbing with a sense of expectancy.

  And suddenly I’m sure. I smile across at him. “Antonio, I love you.”