What a Girl Wants

by Angie Coleman

  The hot water of the shower is very restorative. It’s the first time I’ve seen this part of Jared’s apartment, but the sensation that he hasn’t settled in remains. The t-shirt, black with a white logo printed on the right shoulder, is nearly as long as the skirt of my dress but holds his scent. I look at myself in the mirror as I dry my hair with the towel. I imagine him wearing it and I immediately look away. Ok, I’m beginning to go mad.

  “I’m done!” I yell, coming out of the bathroom.

  “Good, I hung your dress up over there, it should be dry in an hour or so,” he says from the living room. I join him and find him with his eyes glued to the computer screen.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask, curious, sitting next to him and trying to peek, but he hurriedly closes the computer and turns to face me. He remains still for a moment, as if amazed.

  “N… nothing important,” he stammers, his eyes wide, staring at me slightly too intensely. Or maybe I’m imagining things. “I’m going to shower,” he says getting up and quickly disappearing beyond the door. “Don’t touch anything,” I hear him command before the gush of the water covers all other sounds. Ok, I can’t touch anything, but I can snoop around a bit.

  I get up from the couch and begin to roam the place, searching for something that will catch my attention. The boxes piled on the floor are nearly all closed, but some surf-board shaped trophies are sticking out of one. Is Jared a champion? I could try looking him up on Google to find out what sports competitions he’s been in. I’m definitely not using his computer, I’ll have to curb my curiosity until I get home. I continue my reconnaissance and spot a black notebook sticking out from under the couch. Too enticing to resist. I step closer and circle it, trying to memorize its exact position. I turn towards the bathroom and concentrate on the sound of water: it seems Jared is still in the shower. I quickly crouch down, slip it out from under the couch, and open it. It’s a sketch book full of pencil drawings. The first pages are seaside landscapes, underwater scenarios, and desert beaches. They are beautiful and perfect. I delicately leaf through every page, fearing I may ruin these small masterpieces, but I can’t stop touching the details, as if I could feel their consistency in the ruts left by the pencil. All of a sudden, the subjects change – they become hands, feminine and graceful; eyes so expressive that for a moment I have the impression they recognize me. I gaze at them enraptured, without being able to stop turning the pages, finding a new surprise every time.

  “Hmm,” I suddenly hear Jared behind me clearing his throat. I snap the notebook closed and turn. He’s standing behind me, his unruly wet hair curling around his face, sporting an expression I can’t decipher. He’s wearing only a pair of jeans. I don’t believe he’s ever looked more handsome to me.

  “Didn’t I say not to touch anything?” he asks, distractedly rubbing the towel on his head as he circles the couch and sits on the floor right in front of me.

  “I… don’t know,” I reply with the few neurons in my brain still capable of reacting. “I didn’t see anything,” I defend myself with a smile. I’m still grasping the evidence – I know I should be returning it, but I just can’t. Ok, Gil, get your act together!

  “Very amusing.”

  “What about your t-shirt? Where has it gone to?” I feel like I need to change the subject, if only because I can’t stop looking at him. He notices and for a moment his gaze is ablaze.

  “On you,” he reveals without taking his eyes off me. “I was hoping a shower would be enough.” It sounds like a thought that slipped out.

  “To do what?” I am curious, feigning a nonchalance I would so much like to possess right now.

  Jared shifts his gaze to my lips and slowly extends a hand towards me, stroking my cheek. The contact with his fingers sends my brain haywire. I enjoy the heat without being able to think of anything else, as if there were nothing else to think of. I unwittingly close my eyes, in the grips of an instinct I have never felt before. A moment later I feel Jared’s breath on my face.

  “Stop me if you don’t want this, too,” it’s just a murmur that sends a shiver down my spine. His deep voice resounds in my ears in unison with my heartbeat. I find I am desiring him more than I had expected, and I don’t know if this scares me or not, but it doesn’t matter because when his lips touch mine, I can’t even remember what it is I should be scared of. His grip becomes firmer as his fingers weave their way through my hair. I smell the scent of his shower gel, and the taste of his mouth is so inebriating, all I can do is hope this never ends. Our lips are searching, playful. I raise my hands to touch his chest and he reacts, comes closer, wraps his other arm around my waist and pulls me to him. I slide my fingers up his shoulders, along his neck, and through his damp hair as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I feel wonderfully dazed, I second his every movement waiting for the next step, which never fails to come. His mouth grows increasingly bold – it implores, promises, and I cannot deny it anything; I let myself be taken up and overturned, I open my mouth just a bit to feel the touch of his tongue and an involuntary moan escapes me. Suddenly nothing else exists. There is only Jared, his hands touching and caressing me, and his mouth binding me – his divine flavor and his very unique way of making me feel desired and protected. Time does not exist; the world does not exist. I am deep in a dream from which I do not want to awaken, but the insistent ring of my cell phone forces me to return to reality.

  Jared pulls away too quickly, returning to sit a few infinite inches away from me. I don’t like opening my eyes again – I’m confused and I struggle to understand where the sound that just demolished my dream is coming from. I look around, my heart still aflutter, and see my phone on the coffee table close at hand. Jared must have put it there when he hung my dress up to dry. I grab it almost mechanically and read Grandma Natalie’s name on the display.

  “Yes?” I reply with no real interest, my gaze searching for Jared’s. When I find it, I feel sucked into the emerald of his eyes in which the desire triggered by the kiss is still visible.

  “Gil!” Grandma Natalie’s voice is slightly alarmed and this forces me to get a grip on myself.

  “What’s going on, Grandma?” I ask anxiously.

  “You tell me what’s going on. I’ve been calling you for an hour,” she scolds me.

  “I… didn’t hear the phone,” I try to explain.

  “Gil, it’s been pouring all afternoon and you told me this morning you were going to the park. I got worried, you were supposed to be home hours ago. Where are you?”

  “We came back as soon as it started to rain,” I explain, hoping she’ll calm down.

  “We? You and that young man? Are you still with him?” it seems my attempt to reassure her didn’t have the desired effect.

  “Yes, we got wet and I’m waiting for my dress to dry,” I say, standing and going to check at what point it is. “I’ll get the next bus, Grandma, don’t worry.”

  “I’m already worried. I told you to be careful and you didn’t listen,” she reminds me in a voice that says she’s always right, so I’ll pay the consequences if I don’t make up my mind and follow her recommendations.

  “I’m listening, Grandma. I’m fine, I’m sorry I missed your calls, I didn’t hear them, sorry,” I hear her sigh, a sign that at least she’s calming down. I completely forgot to call her when it began to rain.

  “Luckily I didn’t call your father, you would have had him pointlessly worried too,” she says finally. I have the impression this is only the beginning of this scolding.

  “I know, Grandma, you’re right,” I mollify her. She sighs again.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” she orders peremptorily.

  “I promise,” I reply as if I were a child. This seems to win her over, or that’s what I hope, since I don’t much feel like defending myself and saying I’m sorry for all of eternity.

  “I’ll be expecting you home.”

  “I’m coming.” I hang up and grab my dress. The skirt
is still a bit damp, but I’ll make do.

  “I have to go home if I want to survive Grandma Natalie’s fury,” I inform Jared who hasn’t budged from the spot. He’s staring at the closed computer in front of him and his expression is thoughtful. I kneel by his side and lightly touch his shoulder to make sure he’s ok.

  “Is everything ok?” I ask, trying to ignore the odd desire to pick things back up where we left off. He raises his head and looks me in the eye with that hypnotic gaze that makes my heart skip a beat.

  “Yes,” is all he says.

  “I’m going to get changed,” I say standing back up and heading for the bathroom.

  When I return, I find him deep in his work as if nothing had happened. I can’t hide my disappointment, I feel that he’s closed himself up again, and if before this kiss I could have dealt with starting over again, now I cannot. I join him again and close the computer screen abruptly.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask, unyielding, holding his confused gaze.

  “I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you,” he replies after a moment, digging his fingers into my hair and pulling me in for a quick kiss on the lips. Then he leans his forehead against mine and looks up.

  I don’t know how to reply – I’m confused.

  “I didn’t expect it and I didn’t want it. I tried to prevent it from happening, but you…” he pauses, searching for the right words, “you’re so obstinate.”

  “I don’t understand,” I admit, trying to breathe normally.

  “There’s nothing to understand, Gil. If this thing made any sense, if it were rational, I would have been able to dominate it, but it isn’t,” he sighs, and I don’t know if it’s in frustration or because he wasn’t expecting it either.

  “And you’re not happy,” I deduce from his expression. Why does this awareness hurt so much? After all, we’re still in time to take a step back, right?

  Jared strengthens his grasp and pulls away enough so he can look me in the eye.

  “That’s exactly the point,” he explains with a vehemence I’ve never seen in him, “I like being with you, it makes me feel good.”

  I wasn’t expecting this. “So what is the problem?” He turns slightly towards the closed computer on the coffee table, while his hand slides away from my hair.

  “You don’t know much about me,” he confesses with a sigh.

  “Tell me.” I haven’t wanted anything else from the moment I first set foot in this apartment.

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is,” I insist, enlivened by a new hope. He seems torn, as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice deciding whether or not to jump.

  “Everyone deserves happiness, Jared,” I remind him to break the flow of his thoughts. “I’ll see you on Monday,” I take my leave with a smile. I’m about to stand when his fingers grab my wrist and his lips take hold of mine once again for a moment that tastes like eternity but still doesn’t last long enough for me.

  “See you on Monday,” he replies before letting me go.

  11

  “Come on, one last effort and we’re done,” Father urges me on as he sets the last wooden plank against the wall of the shop.

  I’m exhausted. Last night I couldn’t sleep: my heart refused to cut me some slack, and I stayed awake reliving last night’s kiss – or rather series of kisses – though sometimes I get the feeling I merely imagined it. Father arrived early this morning, and Grandma took the opportunity to inform him that yesterday her granddaughter had nearly perished. Of course, Father is much less dramatic than Grandma Natalie, so he listened calmly to her as he had breakfast seated at the table, until she realized time was passing and opted for a wise, “See you at dinner.” I’ve already had three hefty cups of coffee in the attempt to wake up, and I can’t feel my arms. I’ve lost count of how many wooden planks we’ve unloaded from Father’s pick-up truck, and the mere thought of having to turn them into furniture makes me feel even more tired.

  “Gil,” I hear Father’s voice in the distance. I blink a couple of times and he comes back into focus, standing right in front of me. “Are you ok? You seem distracted this morning.”

  “I’m fine, Father,” I display all the enthusiasm I can muster. The truth is that I’m dying to go upstairs and dive into Jared’s adoring gaze.

  “So what are you waiting for? Come on, we have to begin putting together the framework for the window displays,” he rallies me. Ok, ok, I’m coming.

  We spend the entire morning with my father holding the planks and fastening clamps too big to be true, and me making holes with the drill and tightening screws with the screwdriver. We could have traded, usually he’s the one in charge of the drill, but this time he insisted I do the heavy work, especially because tomorrow he won’t be here and I’ll have to be able to manage on my own.

  By lunch time I begin to doubt the prehensility of my fingers, but when my brain sends out the input to move, they do, so I guess they are still sufficiently functional – for the time being.

  “So? How are things going?” Father suddenly asks as he bites into his sandwich, he’s sitting on the floor, his back against the wall of the shop, the long one without windows.

  “Good, why?” I’m a bit taken aback by the question. Who could know better than him how the work is going?

  “Because Grandma Natalie is worried, and she never worries about a thing,” Father digs the subject back up. Ok, maybe I was precipitous in rejoicing about his lack of interest; I know my father and I should know nothing escapes him.

  “Grandma Natalie exaggerates with this kind of thing, you know that.”

  “Of course, I know that, but usually she also has a sixth sense you’d be wrong to underestimate,” he reminds me.

  “I went out with Jared yesterday, the guy who lives upstairs, remember? You met him last week.”

  “Who? The guy who helped you with the walls?”

  “Exactly.”

  “The guy who disappeared so fast I can barely remember his face?” Here we go. Jared’s odd behavior didn’t escape Father’s attention, but he doesn’t know him well enough to judge him.

  “He was busy,” I immediately defend him. “His job is very stressful.”

  “And what is this job?” Good question.

  “I don’t know,” I grudgingly admit.

  “What do you know about him?” I see he’s trying to be patient, to understand.

  “I know I like him,” I confess without thinking, and immediately Father’s expression softens.

  “You’ve never said that about anyone,” he reminds me with a genuine smile.

  “True.”

  “Is he a good man?” the only thing that matters to fathers across the world.

  “Yes, I think he is.”

  “Then it’s ok; but remember that a relationship will never be solid and endure through time if it isn’t based on trust.”

  “I know, Father, I know,” I reassure him. After all it may be true that I don’t know Jared very well, that I don’t know much about his life, but I do know what he feels. I see it in the way he looks at me, in the way he frowns when he’s worried, in his silences that are sometimes more eloquent than a thousand words.

  “Ok, it’s time to get back to work… and try not to end up like your sister.”

  “What’s Lillian up to?” I ask, getting up off the floor and dusting off my pants with my hands.

  “She’s suffering for love.”

  “It’s not going well with Zach?”

  “She refuses to talk about it, but to me he looks smitten.”

  “So? What’s the problem? The last time I talked to her she sounded quite taken, too.”

  “Now she’s being reluctant. We’ll see how it goes. You know the saying: only time will tell.” Right. Let’s hope for the best.

  I spent two days struggling with the furniture. I used a thousand clamps, ten thousand screws, and an infinite amount of plaster to cover the holes. My best friend is now c
offee – the only thing that can help me keep my mind alert and my eyes open. I arrange a silver platter on an antique coffee table in the center of Ernest’s shop and ponder Jared’s hit and run last Monday. I would have liked to spend more time with him, instead he came down to the shop all dressed up – a vision I’ll never be able to get out of my head – to inform me that he has several meetings this week and won’t be home much. The fiery kiss he gave me before he left was not enough for me, it merely left me with the desire to repeat the experience countless times.

  “This place has got so you can’t recognize it anymore,” Ernest sneaks up behind me and catches me by surprise. I turn and notice the searching look with which he is examining my work.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s so… tidy,” he finally concedes.

  “That’s how it’s supposed to be,” I point out.

  “It’s not bad, but at this point I no longer see my usefulness,” he complains, lowering his glasses on his nose and eyeing the platter I just laid out like the falcon eyes its prey.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one will have to call me to find something anymore, it’s all easily traceable, perfectly visible, impeccably arranged,” he insists, looking me straight in the eye.

  “I don’t understand if this is a good thing or not,” with him it’s always so hard to tell.

  “It’s a good thing, dear, what else could it be for a lazy bum like him?” Jane’s voice intrudes on our conversation. We both turn towards the door, which closes on its own after she has made her entrance.

  “It’s true, it will save me lots of time wasting inconvenience,” Ernest then reflects.

  “You did an excellent job, Gil, this place looks completely different,” Jane congratulates me with one of those smiles that has the effect of making her look older and more beautiful at the same time.

  “Thank you, Jane.”

  “Well, I’d say you’ve paid off your debt with me then. This evening I’ll bring you the items we agreed upon, so I will have fulfilled my part of the deal,” Ernest concludes with a display of conceit which neither of us credits; he then turns his back on us and returns to his dark lair. He is probably hoping he has successfully concealed his satisfied smile, but if I noticed it, I doubt it escaped Jane’s attention.