Haunting Jasmine

by Anjali Banerjee

  He jumps down to the sand, then up onto another rock. “Let’s go to your old home.”

  “Now? Today?”

  “Why not?”

  “Someone else lives there.”

  “So what? We’ll just look.”

  “I don’t have a car. It’s too far to walk.”

  “We’ll take bicycles. We can rent them in town.” He hops down into the sand. A pristine beach stretches ahead. Not a soul in sight.

  “Why would you want to see my old house?” I hop down after him.

  “I want to know everything about you.” He crouches next to a tide pool carved from the rocks. “Look, there.” He points into the water.

  For a moment, I see nothing, then an underwater world gradually comes into focus. Orange starfish cling to the rocks beneath the surface. Red starfish. Yellow starfish.

  “Beautiful!” I say.

  He points at scuttling brown crabs. “Hermit crabs. I’d forgotten how much life is out here.” He touches the water with his finger, sending soft ripples across the surface. “This place, the beach, nature. Brings me back to what’s important.”

  “I know. Me, too.” We stay for a while, watching the creatures beneath the water, and then we continue down the beach, where large pink crabs crawl in and out of the surf. Perfect shells have washed up, stranded by the receding tide.

  “I want this day to last forever,” he says on the way back to town.

  “Me, too.” My heart is full.

  In a few minutes, we’re in Classic Cycle at the corner of Harborside Road and Uphill Drive, which leads out into the country, toward my old house.

  While we’re inside the store, choosing bicycles to rent, Lucia Peleran walks in, arm in arm with Virginia Langemack.

  “I thought that was you!” Lucia exclaims. “We stopped by the store, and Tony was there. On a weekend! He said you’d be away all day.” She sucks in her breath, then holds out her hand to shake Connor’s. “My, oh, my, and who might you be? Jasmine caught herself a live one.”

  “This is Dr. Hunt. He’s only visiting,” I say quickly. “We have to go—”

  “So soon? But why?” Lucia is grinning at Connor.

  He nods a greeting and shakes her hand.

  Virginia smiles. “Dr. Hunt. The name sounds familiar.”

  “My father—”

  “Yes.” Virginia narrows her gaze. “You look very much like him. I remember him vaguely.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Lucia says, her grin widening. Do I detect a flirtatious flutter of her lashes? She’s still holding his hand, as if she slapped Krazy Glue on her fingers. “We need more doctors here. We’ve got everything you need. Culture, art, theater, organic food, lovely beaches. Such beauty here.”

  “Yes,” Connor says, looking at me. “Such beauty.” His gaze makes my knees weak. He manages to pull his arm out of Lucia’s grip without offending her. She’s still grinning.

  “We have to show you around,” she says, sweeping her arms through the air.

  Virginia is still staring at Connor. “Your father, yes. I remember reading a book he wrote.”

  “His memoir,” I say.

  “I may have it somewhere in my library. Funny how much you look like him.”

  “People say that all the time,” Connor says.

  “Much mystery surrounding his death—”

  But Connor is already steering me to the bicycles, so we can make our getaway.

  Chapter 33

  The front wheel of my bicycle squeaks, and the gears are stiff, but the sunshine is glorious, the wind in my hair. “I’m sorry about what Virginia said. It’s none of her business how your father died.”

  He pumps up beside me in the bike lane. “I get that kind of question every time someone recognizes me.”

  “What did she mean about mystery—?”

  “Nothing mysterious about losing your father. He died. What else is there to say?”

  “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No harm done. Let’s enjoy this day.”

  Fine, so he’s prickly. I let him be. We pass meadows, farms, vineyards, dense stands of ancient forest. Memories flood back to me, of riding my old bike along these roads, no hands, laughing, reckless. Taking chances. “Down that lane, you’ll find the Grand Woods,” I say, pointing to the left. “And in that field, there’s a Saturday farmers’ market through October. To the right, there’s North Beach, and Fort Winston, an old army lookout post, is to the west, now converted to a park.”

  He nods, smiling.

  “This way to my old house.” I swing left onto shady Rho-die Lane and ride to the end of the cul-de-sac, where the street gives way to a dense forest of fir, cedar, and madrone. As I approach my old address, the palms of my hands grow clammy. Connor is right beside me.

  I stop at the curb in front of the house, hop off the bike, and stand there, staring at what was once my childhood home. Connor pulls up beside me. I hear his breathing, smell his sweat, but he says nothing.

  Our formerly blue bungalow has been painted drab brown, the wooden blinds replaced by frilly lace curtains. My emotions shift like tectonic plates. “They cut down the blue spruce in the front yard. And we used to have two giant maple trees in the back. We left much of the garden wild. We used to have trees here.” All gone, replaced by stunted bushes and manicured grass, artificially weed free. Tears come to my eyes.

  Connor rests a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Not what you expected to see?”

  I grip the handlebars, as if the bike might slip away. “The only thing that’s the same is the sidewalk.” The concrete is still studded with the colorful glass beads and rocks. One blue chunk of glass glints in the sunlight, and a memory comes to me. I must have been barely four years old. I’m running along this sidewalk in my summer dress and sandals, Green Eggs and Ham tucked under my arm. Dad is driving me to Auntie’s bookstore, and I can’t wait to exchange this book for a new one. Every time I step into my aunt’s old house, Dr. Seuss speaks to me in rhyme. While I sit on the servants’ staircase in darkness, I talk to him, and to the other authors whose spirits settle around me like butterflies, telling me gentle stories.

  And then the spirits slowly faded, as I grew up, as I spent fewer days in the bookstore, and I forgot the magic.

  “Are you okay?” Connor’s touching my cheek. His finger comes away wet.

  I hastily wipe the tears. “I just . . . remembered something from my childhood.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shake my head.

  He takes my hand. “We can go,” he says gently.

  A woman steps out onto the porch in a plaid polyester housecoat the color of lime ice cream. Below the hem of the housecoat, her doughy legs spill down over nonexistent ankles. She bends with great effort to pick up the newspaper from the porch, then goes back into the house. This is her home now.

  I turn to Connor. “Yes, let’s go. Away. Let’s take the ferry into the city.”

  Chapter 34

  Half an hour later, we’re on the boat to Seattle, in a booth by the window. Connor sits across from me, his long legs stretched under the table. We gaze back toward the island, at the dense forest tumbling down the hillsides toward a narrow strip of caramel beach.

  “Cormorants,” he says in wonder, pointing to graceful black birds sunning themselves on a concrete buoy.

  “You act like you’ve never seen them before.”

  “Not in a long time.” He pats the vinyl seat next to him. “Come and sit here. You’re too far away.”

  I move over to his side and, pressed against him, I’m in heaven. How different this voyage feels from the desolation of that ferry ride back to the island a few weeks ago, when I was lost in a stupor of melancholy. My heart is full of the light, the breeze.

  We’re silent the rest of the way, but I can feel the strong beat of his heart, the line of muscle from his torso to his thighs, the tension of his arm around me.

  As the ferry glides in toward do
wntown, glass high-rises loom ahead of us, and new condominiums sprout up along the waterfront. Giant cruise ships are parked in the distance against the shoreline.

  “The Emerald City,” Connor says, as people crowd to the exit doors. In a minute, we’re out in the cool air, redolent of exhaust and salty brine. We follow the raised concrete walkway that crosses Alaskan Way onto First Street. I’m light on my feet, full of expectation. Connor peers into shops, restaurants, and boutiques as we stroll up to Second Avenue and turn left. We board the free downtown bus in front of the Seattle Art Museum.

  We join an eclectic array of the city’s inhabitants—an elderly woman; a heavyset man ripping open packs of baseball cards; a girl bopping to music on her iPod. Connor watches them in wonder, as if he is once again in a foreign country.

  “Where are we going?” I whisper, thrilled. I haven’t ridden the bus in ages, perhaps since my college days.

  “Anywhere,” Connor says, grinning. The seats are narrow, and I’m squished against him, aware of his warmth. We pass shops, restaurants, cafés. Then Connor pulls the buzzer and we hop off the bus and run up the hill. We’re still in the heart of downtown, among historic brick buildings, old corrugated lampposts. We stop in front of the Emerald City Bookstore, the latest releases propped in the window. I’m drawn inside, Connor at my heels. Fluorescent bulbs cast anemic light across plain bookshelves crammed with new paperbacks. The floor is industrial-strength laminate. Murmured conversation and the generic smells of paper and perfume mingle in the air. In these ordinary rooms, there is no hint of enchantment, no dust or clutter, no plush armchairs or Hindu gods.

  “Can I help you?” a round-faced woman asks.

  I smile at her. “Thank you, you already have.”

  She gives me a funny look as Connor and I leave the store. “I don’t want my aunt to lose her bookstore,” I tell him.

  He takes my hand as we trudge up the steep hill toward Seattle Center. “What brings you to this sudden conclusion?”

  “Emerald City Bookstore. It’s not enchanted. Auntie’s saggy armchairs, Ganesh, the pictures on the walls—all the books in piles—everything marks the store as hers. When you walk inside, you know it’s her bookstore and nobody else’s. It’s enchanted. . . .”

  “Enchanted. An apt word.” Connor smiles at me.

  We stop in front of a brick corner building with oblong, darkened windows. A small sign next to the door reads Serious Pie. “Look, pizza.” His voice fills with childlike amazement.

  I study his face, the excitement in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had pizza.”

  “Not in years,” he says with longing.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Traveling, remember?” He leads me into the warm, fragrant restaurant with a red tile floor and tall oak tables.

  A young, fresh-faced woman rushes up in a white apron. “Two for lunch? Right this way.” She shows us to a table in a shadowy corner. Connor’s hand is on the small of my back. He sits beside me and rests his arm on the back of the booth as we share a look at the menu. I can hardly breathe.

  “So many options,” he says. “If you’re vegetarian, you can have the Yukon Gold potato pizza. Mozzarella and chanterelle mushroom.”

  “How did you know?”

  “I see all, hear all,” he says and winks.

  My cheeks are hot again. I don’t remember mentioning that I’m a vegetarian, but I must have. I order the Yukon Gold. Connor chooses the mozzarella and a glass of dark ale.

  “So, tell,” he says. “Why does a beautiful, successful woman like you return to a quiet island to run a bookstore? What is your real reason?”

  Beautiful? Successful? “You flatter me. I told you, my aunt has a heart condition. She went to India for an operation. She’s hush-hush about the whole thing. But she called recently to say she’s okay. I was worried about her.”

  “She’s an amazing woman. Is she alone in India, or—?”

  “We have family there. She’s traveling a lot.”

  “Do you go to India often?”

  “I was born there, but I haven’t been back since Rob and I met. . . .” Our courtship whirls back to me. Beautiful sunsets, moments I kept in photo albums, in dreams. “He didn’t like to travel to exotic countries. He worried about getting sick.”

  “Now you can travel all you want. You can follow your dreams.”

  “What about you? What are your dreams?”

  He rubs his finger across his eyebrow. “I’m always hopeful, Jasmine. Waiting for the next adventure.”

  Our pizza arrives, fragrant and hot. Connor closes his eyes while he eats. “Best pizza I’ve ever had.”

  “Mine’s pretty good, too,” I say, but I’m more interested in watching him discover the flavors.

  “You know what I want to do?” he says after lunch, as we step out into light again. “I want to see a movie. First one we find.”

  “Pacific Place, right there,” I say, pointing. “They’re playing a film noir double feature. I love film noir!”

  Both movies are shot in grainy black-and-white with occasional splashes of color. The first film is forgettable, but in the second film, the main character is a troubled, hard-drinking private investigator with a constantly pained expression and a hidden past. He’s mesmerizing, but the plot feels incoherent, and I can see the twists coming a mile off. I could watch a dozen incoherent movies, as long as Connor sits so close to me, his knee touching mine. He reaches out to hold my hand, and through every scene, I’m aware of his scent, his breathing, his presence.

  How long has it been since I’ve slept with a man? Nearly eighteen months. My body aches with need.

  “What did you think?” he says on our way out of the theater. The sky has darkened, and the air is cool with the promise of evening.

  “The terrorism angle felt dropped in, but I loved the actors.”

  “I didn’t notice those details. I just enjoyed the experience.” He’s still holding my hand as we stroll down Virginia Street, weaving our way through a colorful city crowd. An Asian man sits on the sidewalk, playing a mournful-sounding stringed instrument.

  “That’s an erhu,” Connor says.

  “It’s beautiful.” I drop a five-dollar bill into the musician’s instrument case. Bills and coins pepper the velvety interior. “Makes me feel transported.”

  “Why don’t we transport ourselves to the land of dessert?” Connor leads me into the Chocolate Box, featuring every kind of chocolate, cupcake, and pie in imagination. I choose the rhubarb pie; Connor chooses pear compote. We sit by the window and watch the people pass.

  “Ah, pear, my favorite,” Connor says, savoring a mouthful. “It’s been so long since I’ve enjoyed fruit this way.”

  “You were so excited about the pizza, and now dessert. You act like you haven’t eaten in years.”

  “I haven’t,” he says. “You brought me here, allowed me to eat, to enjoy life for a while. Thank you, Jasmine.”

  I focus on people passing on the sidewalk. “I didn’t do this for you—”

  “You did.”

  “Come on. How?”

  “You need me. The power of your heart, of your imagination, allows me to be here for now.”

  “What are you talking about?” A strange prickle travels up my spine. “What do you mean, ‘for now’? Are you going somewhere?”

  “I don’t want to,” he says softly. “Believe me, I want to stay with you forever.”

  The heat spreads up through my cheeks. The pie seems to grow too rich, too heavy. “Don’t talk about forever. Robert used to talk that way. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “All right. Then let’s talk about people. I used to play this game. Look at people and try to imagine their lives.” He nods toward a man in a suit, carrying a briefcase. “He’s a traveling salesman.”

  I point to an elderly couple in pastel colors and hats, cameras slung around their shoulders. “Tourists from one of the cruise ships.”

&n
bsp; A woman in rubber-soled shoes races by. “Busy nurse going home from work,” Connor says.

  A couple saunters past, the man a puffed-up bodybuilder, the woman a buxom blond in five-inch silver heels. Both appear to have visited the tanning salon for countless hours.

  “We know why they’re together,” I whisper.

  Connor sips his espresso. “Why?” he says, feigning ignorance.

  “You know. Just look at them.”

  “Nothing wrong with a little sex.”

  I blush fiercely, my lips tingling at the memory of his kiss. “But how long do you think they’ll stay together? How long can sex sustain you?”

  “For a very long time,” he says in a low voice. He kisses me again. I’ve had it with this trip to the city.

  “Your place or mine?” I whisper against his lips.

  Chapter 35

  Auntie’s house is dark, except for the orange porch lamp lighting our way. Upstairs in the apartment, the door is barely shut before Connor is pulling me into his arms. I press my hands into the rough stubble of his cheek, stand on tiptoe to kiss him. I’m in a soft twilight world, falling into a well of sensation, his hands on my hips, traveling the landscape of my body, easing me in a slow dance toward the bedroom.

  My nerve endings awaken after such a long sleep, our clothes peeling away like layers of resistance. In the darkness, Connor takes my hand and presses my fingers to a scar on his chest.

  I gasp. “What happened? That must have hurt.”

  “Long story,” he whispers. “I’ll tell you later. I wanted you to feel this and not be alarmed.”

  “I’m not alarmed,” I whisper.

  “That’s good.” He pulls me onto the bed and into his arms. He’s gentle at first, then insistent, demanding, generous. He speaks to me in a low, rumbling voice, and I throw caution out into the night. I become my deepest, sensual self—I am color, scent, instinct. Connor responds in kind, and we move in symphony.

  “You make me feel alive,” he whispers, our limbs intertwined, our sweat mingling. “More than alive.”

  The night passes in a blur. Between frenzied bouts of lovemaking, we share secrets I have never revealed. Somehow, I’m compelled to share my deepest thoughts.