“What are you doing?”
“This,” he replies simply before he kisses me. Anybody could be passing by in the entrance hall, but for some reason the fear of being caught in an embarrassing situation seems trivial right now, so much so that for a moment I ask myself how I could waste my time with such a problem. My hands weave through his hair, while his roam voraciously under my t-shirt. Feeling the heat of his fingers on my back awakens my senses, and I respond to his every movement until I find myself with my back against the wall. A hoarse moan escapes him when I stroke his neck and then the shadow of a beard on his cheeks. My body arches until it adheres perfectly to his, to his sculpted abdomen. His breathing becomes one with my own, both fast and demanding. I close my eyes and lose myself in the myriad sensations and emotions that I can hardly name. Jared’s lips move from mine to savor my skin, my chin, the hollow of my neck.
“What are we doing?” I pant, but almost regret the question. I realize that after all I don’t care about the answer, not right now, and this scares me. I’m standing before the most dangerous leap in the dark of my life, and I realize I am afraid. Involuntarily my body stiffens and Jared stops. The pleasant torture is over in a moment, while he resumes looking me in the eye. I don’t know what he sees there; all I know is that his expression becomes thoughtful.
“We’re going too fast,” he murmurs with a tinge of frustration in his voice and the inkling of a frown.
“I… I don’t know,” I stammer, incapable of expressing my feelings.
“Forgive me,” he whispers, pulling away from me and eliciting a feeling of emptiness I am not used to. “When I’m with you, I am incapable of reason – all I feel is this intense desire to make you mine and… forgive me,” he repeats, looking away.
“It’s just that I’m not used to it,” I try to explain, though it is difficult.
“Neither am I, Gil,” he admits. “Neither am I.”
“I think I have never fallen in love before,” I confess, thinking back to the only relationship of my life, a nondescript cloud of smoke compared to what I feel for Jared. He looks at me again, and finally a more relaxed smile returns to his face.
“I think I was fooling myself, too,” he reveals, barely stifling a laugh. “Now I had better go.” He moves away without taking his emerald eyes off me until he reaches the door.
“Will you come on Thursday?” I suddenly feel the need to be reassured.
He smiles. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything in the world.”
14
“Are you anxious?” This is the most inappropriate question possible, but today I’m willing to forgive everything. Lillian and I are enjoying a stroll in Kennedy Park. Though it’s Tuesday, my big sister decided to take the week off to come and help me with the last arrangements before the opening. She showed up unannounced on Sunday and proclaimed, fairly theatrically as is in her style, that she would stay in Fall River with me and Grandma Natalie until Friday. Since she showed up, she has done nothing but focus on me and what still needs to be done to make the shop shipshape for the opening: she took care of ordering some flowers to arrange here and there, helped me organize a work station for the sewing machine, and decorate the windows with all the hats she and Father brought down in the pick-up truck on Sunday morning. She did everything with an abnegation which is totally uncharacteristic of her, and she is still displaying an interest in my emotional state which is excessive for a person like her. Nothing will take this insistent idea from my mind: she’s trying not to think about something.
“I’m fine,” I repeat for the umpteenth time.
“How can you not be anxious? Two days from now you’ll be a step away from opening your shop, you can’t not be anxious,” she objects with conviction.
“But instead I’m fine.”
“Be that as it may, I think you’re saying that only so as not to worry me, but deep down inside you’re devoured by anxiety,” she mutters, lengthening her stride. Oh, no, enough of this!
“Lillian,” I call out to her, stopping behind her and folding my arms over my chest.
She stops and turns towards me. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m the one asking ‘what’s the matter?’”
“You’re asking me?” she opens her eyes wide with the dramatic flair she pulls out only when she has something to hide. As if I don’t know her.
“Yes, you, Lillian Bennett. Now you’re going to sit down here and tell me everything,” I insist, pointing at a bench not far from us in the shade. She looks at me as if she were trying to find an excuse not to do as I said, but I clear my throat in such a way that it is obvious there’s no way she’s getting out of this. Finally she sighs, flicks a strand of brown hair behind her shoulder with a dramatic gesture, and obeys. I sit next to her and look into her hazel eyes. Judging by her expression something serious has definitely happened.
“Well?” I ask her impatiently. She torments her fingers in her lap and looks down.
“I’ve decided I hate men,” she reveals with such a comical expression that I would laugh if I didn’t know it would upset her.
“That sounds a little excessive.”
“Excessive? No way!” she bursts angrily. “By now I’ve figured it out, I’m not capable of falling in love with a decent man. Maybe I don’t understand them, I don’t know. For sure it’s evident that we’re not made to live on the same planet.”
“What about telling me what happened before you book a one way trip to Venus?” I patiently suggest. “Did something happen with Zach?” the only reason that comes to mind for an outburst like this is him.
“Grandma was right, that’s all,” she sighs, her eyes filling with tears.
“About what?”
“About the fact that he’s married.”
“What? Zach’s married?” my mouth opens wide in surprise. It’s impossible that a piece of news like that escaped Rochester’s grapevine. Lillian looks up with a gaze too sad to belong to her and nods dejectedly. “How’s that possible? How can you be certain of it?”
“I met his impeccable wife, that’s how I’m certain of it,” she retorts.
“Whaaat?” I’ll never recover from this conversation.
“Yeah, a tall, busty, blonde Valkyrie – and you know what?” she asks heatedly. “She’s even nice. Get it? She’s the perfect woman!” she exclaims, marking her words with a wide gesture of her arms.
“When did you see her?”
“She came to the office last Friday,” she confesses dejectedly.
“What did she come for?”
“What do you think? She wanted to talk to her husband,” she bursts out as a flash of fury and humiliation flashes through her eyes.
“She could have been a friend, couldn’t she?” I’m sorry, I really can’t believe a guy like Zach has a wife hidden away somewhere.
“Sure, a friend who says she’s his wife,” she replies sarcastically. “And to think I had thought… I’m really stupid.”
“Oh, Lillian,” I impulsively embrace her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too,” she murmurs sadly against my shoulder. I hold her tighter while I mentally scold myself for encouraging her. I should have listened to Grandma Natalie, she’s always right about these things; I don’t know how she does it, but it’s true.
“Enough of this self-commiseration,” Lillian reprimands herself, freeing herself from my embrace and looking at me with a barely visible smile. She quickly dries a tear that had escaped down her cheek and sniffs. A moment later she is wearing a determined expression. “I didn’t come here to think about Zach; he doesn’t deserve it, not any more. Let him be with his wife, he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. Never trust a man who doesn’t tell you about his past – cumbersome skeletons always come out of the closets of men like that, mark my word. A wife… I can’t believe it, he managed to keep a wife from me!” she starts getting worked up again.
“But on Monday you have to go back to work,” I remind h
er in case she’s forgotten this significant detail.
“There are still four days ‘till Monday, and then… I don’t know if he’ll see me at work on Monday,” she states combatively.
“But…”
“No buts. We’ll see how he manages to deal with the appointments, the invoices, and the phone calls all on his own. Let him call the Valkyrie to give him a hand.”
“Lillian, it’s your job,” I try to make her see reason.
“Right, and I’m damn good at it too. I can find another desperate professional who needs my help. There are literally hundreds of men who can’t handle their accounts and organize their appointments. It doesn’t have to be him whose life I make easier.”
“You say that only because you’re mad. Don’t make a hasty decision now, wait ‘till you’ve let off a bit of steam.”
“I’m not mad, Gil, I’m furious.” Exactly. I’ve never seen my sister so disappointed by an affair, which hadn’t even begun to boot, or at least I hope it hadn’t, because only something more important than a simple fling could lead her to this. Not that she tells me about these things often, she has always preferred to solve her problems on her own, and this makes me suspect that what there was between her and Zach had gone way beyond what she’s told me so far. A simple kiss can’t be the cause for such drama for someone like Lillian.
“Why do I get the impression you are actually in love with Zach?”
Lillian looks at me in confusion, then she stands and grabs my hand to pull me off the bench, too.
“Didn’t we say we wouldn’t talk about him? Now we need to concentrate on you. Tomorrow isn’t only the day of the opening – it’s your birthday, too!”
*
“Dinner’s ready, girls!” Grandma Natalie calls from the kitchen. I leap from the couch hoping I’m still in time to help set the table, but the table is already perfectly laid out. I have been sitting on the couch observing Lillian watch TV all this time, and I didn’t realize it was time for supper. I was hoping to gain more intelligence, but she refused to talk about Zach all day, hiding behind that smile which is too enthusiastic to be true.
“Sorry Grandma, I didn’t realize it was supper time.”
“Don’t worry, Gil. Before you came to keep me company, I set the table on my own every day, you know?” she reminds me, bringing the salad bowl to the table.
“Before you set the table for one, now there are three of us.”
“Two and a half, considering how little your sister eats,” she points out.
“I eat enough, Grandma, it’s the two of you that eat like you have bottomless pits instead of stomachs,” Lillian retorts, appearing in the kitchen as if by magic and sitting close to me. “Only Gil can go for a month gobbling down sandwiches without dying of gastritis.”
“Sandwiches are good,” I feel the urge to point out, taking my place at the table.
“Especially if I make them,” Grandma Natalie adds.
“I never said they weren’t, but you know how it is: good things are fattening, and the ones that aren’t fattening aren’t good. Salad please,” she concludes, holding out a hand for Grandma Natalie to pass the salad bowl. Grandma doesn’t have to be told twice, and then she passes me the bread basket.
“Your parents are coming tomorrow morning, girls. Is everything ready?” she changes the subject, resuming her role as the practical woman we all know her to be.
“Yes, it’s all ready, Grandma,” I reply calmly.
“Then we can devote ourselves to this,” Grandma Natalie moves the empty chair by her side and brings out a package with a gold bow in the center.
“What is it?” I ask, my eyes wide.
“You didn’t think that Grandma and I would let your birthday go by without getting you a present?”
“Actually yes,” I candidly admit. This year I received a bigger present than I would have ever expected and I need to thank so many people, beginning with Grandma Natalie – for her hospitality and complicity – that I don’t think I deserve anything else.
“But we did,” Grandma Natalie insists, handing me the package over the table. “Open it.”
I take it and place it on my legs, mesmerized by the floral motif of the wrapping paper. Lillian smiles, her fingers interwoven over her heart, waiting for me to discover what it conceals. So I rip the paper, open the box, and am dumbstruck by its contents. It’s not possible.
“We thought that this year you would need something a little more stimulating to make your hats, so Lillian and I went to Mr Clancy’s and got you this,” Grandma Natalie explains with a satisfied expression. I blink a couple of times, just to make sure I’m not dreaming. An infinite amount of ribbons of thousands of different materials and colors, feathers of all sizes, shiny and showy or opaque and elegant stones, a myriad of different accessories that I can already see properly adorning broad brimmed straw hats or more soberly cut felt ones. My hands itch with the desire to set to work.
“Well? Do you like it?” Lillian’s anxious voice forces me to take my eyes off this bounty to concentrate on her.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course not! After all we went through to find those little ivory butterflies, I would like a slightly more gratifying comment,” she happily teases me. She does have a point.
“I don’t have any comments to make… I’m speechless,” I confess, returning my eyes to my unexpected early birthday gift.
“That’s a first,” Grandma Natalie comments, and we all burst out laughing.
*
The sound of my cell phone spreads through the room, earning me a curious look from Lillian, who is lying on the bed near the wall reading a book. I grab the phone and my heart skips a beat when I read the name on the screen.
“Who is it at this time of night?” it doesn’t look like Lillian intends to give me some privacy.
“It’s only ten,” I protest, waving a belittling hand.
“Who is it at ten o’clock at night?” she obstinately restates. I sigh and get up from the bed, heading for the hallway. “Oh, it’s your sexy upstairs helper,” she manages to deduce before I slam the door behind me. The usual snoop.
“Hello?” I hurriedly reply, letting myself slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor.
“Are you ready for tomorrow?” his warm voice instantly makes me miss him. He had to work so much this week that we barely got to see each other, not to mention Lillian’s nearly constant presence.
“Do you have a bonus question?” I’ve already heard this one plenty today, I don’t feel like answering it again. He laughs.
“Not very original, huh?”
“The word ‘original’ would flee the dictionary if it knew you used it under these circumstances.”
“I hope it’s a good runner, ‘cause I intend to invoke it once again,” he softly replies. “I miss you.”
“Me too,” I instinctively confess. This may not be an original statement either, but it’s true, and I’d love to hear it over and over again without fear of boredom. In a certain, unexpected sense, I’m glad someone misses me the way I miss him and vice versa.
“Tomorrow, when it’s all over, I would like you to dedicate some of your time to me.”
“All the time you want.” I desire nothing more.
“We need to talk,” his tone is suddenly serious.
“Is something the matter?”
“No,” he immediately replies, but I can’t hear the playful tone in his voice anymore. “Everything’s ok, I just don’t want to put off what I have to tell you.”
“It’s ok,” I try to reassure him. “Is this about your job?” It’s the only subject that irks him so much.
“It’s about my job and about me. I promised I would explain it all, and I intend to do so,” he seems determined, but also scared, and I don’t understand why.
“Ok, we’ll talk about it tomorrow,” I try to imbue him with the serenity I suspect he needs right now.
“
Just promise you’ll listen to me,” he adds, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Of course I’ll listen to you… Jared, are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes, I’m ok, don’t worry,” he reassures me, brightening.
“If you say so, I trust you.”
He laughs, and the sound of his laughter has the power to instantly relax me. “Good night, Gil. Sleep well, tomorrow’s a big day for you,” his tender voice sends a shiver down my spine I choose to ignore. Sometimes I hate talking on the phone, much better to say certain things in person.
“Good night, Jared.”
“I love you,” he murmurs before he hangs up. I’m petrified, staring at the cell phone as if hypnotized. I didn’t imagine it, did I? Did he really say that?
“Gil, what’s taking so long?” Lillian’s irritation catches me by surprise, so much so that the phone slips out of my hand, falls on my knees, and then to the floor with a thud. I didn’t even notice her leave the room.
“What?” I ask trying to return to reality.
“Your face… You look like you’ve seen an alien,” she says coming to sit next me and picking up my phone to put it back in my hand.
“An alien? No, no aliens.”
“What then?” she demands impatiently, glaring at me with those hazel eyes too much like Grandma Natalie’s. I suspect that as she ages she’ll look just like her.
“He said he loves me.”
“Who?”
“Jared.”
“So I was right,” she gloats happily. “It was the sexy upstairs neighbor on the phone.”
“He said he loves me,” I repeat as if in a trance. He’s never told me that before. What’s this odd feeling? Why do I feel like laughing and crying all at the same time; of jumping up and down on one foot and running in the street yelling that he said he loves me until the whole world has heard?
“Now it looks like you’ve seen a whole space station full of aliens,” Lillian waves a hand frantically before my eyes. “Am I wrong or did the news shock you?”
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