What a Girl Wants

by Angie Coleman

  “Thank you for your concern, seriously. I appreciate it, but I prefer doing it my way this time,” I try to explain. It’s difficult to explain something that isn’t clear in one’s own head, especially because I’m torn between ‘follow your heart’ and ‘listen to reason,’ something which has never happened to me before.

  “As you wish,” Jane gives me a wrinkly smile before handing me a cup of tea.

  I spend the whole week between the shop and Grandma Natalie’s house. Sometimes I get the feeling I am managing to recover some of the normality that governed my life before I met Jared, but the next moment I find myself thinking of him and I realize I have recovered nothing. Work doesn’t distract me as much as I had hoped. I spend hours looking through the glass doors in the hard fought against hope of seeing him come through the entrance hall. I know he’s home, but I lack the courage to go upstairs. Besides, what would I say? That I hate him for having lied to me, for having let me fall in love with him without warning me it would hurt so much? It’s not even true that I hate him. If I did, I could maybe move on; but instead I’m still here, thinking of him and hating myself for doing so.

  That’s enough, I can’t stand it any longer! I let drop the needle with which I was sewing a light blue ribbon for Margherita’s hat, and I go out, heading for the café – I can afford to take a break until I’m open to the public permanently in two weeks’ time. I need to prepare an adequate number of hats before I open the doors, and despite the fact that production time is short, I should manage to achieve my objective in the set time – at least I hope so. I need coffee – I’m sleeping so little lately. Though it’s well past eleven, there are only a couple of people sitting in the café drinking juice and frappuccino. The bar tender glances at me and I order my coffee. Efficient as usual, he serves me and in three minutes I’m out. I suspect the café is always empty because the bar tender is too fast serving clients – he plows through them at the speed of light.

  I’m about to pull my keys out of my pocket when the main door opens on its own. I look up and my heart stops. I hadn’t expected to bump into him like this; I’m not ready. I immediately look down and my first thought is to dodge past him and go and hide in the shop, but as soon as I take a step forward, Jared bars my way and I am forced to back up to keep a distance from him. I’m angry with him, and furious with myself because all I want to do is to kiss him.

  “I need to go by,” I struggle to say, my mouth dry.

  “You need to talk to me,” he corrects me, determined. What?

  “You should have talked to me a long time ago, not now!” I exclaim, looking up again. “I don’t need to do anything.”

  “Gil, please, let me explain.”

  “What is there left to explain? I’d say it’s all clear. You got my father fired; it was your fault and instead of telling me, you decided to keep quiet. A smart move, there’s no denying it.” I grip the paper cup so hard it trembles in sync with my hand, spilling some scalding coffee on my skin. “Ow!” I let slip, and he immediately takes a step towards me. “Don’t you dare come any closer,” I grit my teeth, holding out a hand to preserve the distance between us. My warning seems to have the desired effect, because instead of insisting he moves slightly to his right leaving me free to pass. Without thinking, I dive inside with my heart hammering in my chest and tears threatening to flow from my eyes like a rushing river.

  “I don’t want to let you go, Gil,” I hear him say before I manage to slam the door behind me. I can feel every word branded in me, and anger and disappointment get the better of me. If he really cared so much about me, why didn’t he tell me the truth?

  I return to the shop and lock myself inside. I don’t want any more surprises today, I couldn’t handle them. I throw the remains of my coffee in the trash and set to work. I want to forget him, I want to be able to erase him from my life, I want to stop feeling this dull pain that continues to grip my chest. Only a few days have gone by and I already feel annihilated by this struggle – what chance do I have of winning?

  17

  There is a little less than a week to go before I open to the public. Grandma Natalie, with Ernest’s invaluable help, gave me a hand advertising the event throughout the city. Neither of them have dared breach the unmentionable subject over the past few days, but they both keep watching me as if I were a decomposing zombie. I know, I’m not at my best lately, but Lillian keeps telling me it will pass, and that is the only hope I have left now. I can feel no change in the intensity of my pain: the seconds in which I manage not to think of him have not increased, my heart has not become lighter, my disappointment hasn’t faded. Everything seems to confirm that it will not in fact pass, but I can’t surrender to this uncomfortable truth. I can’t and I don’t want to. I’ve begun running a bit in the morning to work off the anger, and I asked Ernest to make the bicycle disappear from the entrance hall. Seeing it every day when I came in to the store was too painful. At first, he didn’t seem very inclined to help me, but when he saw me grab it to throw it against the wall, he became convinced that it was best if he took care of it. I have no idea where he put it and I don’t want to know. Right now, the only thing I care about is finishing applying these beautiful ivory butterflies to Margherita’s hat. There’s no doubt, it came out really well: a light straw hat with a wide brim, a sky blue silk ribbon wrapped around the lower part of the crown in soft, elegant folds and enhanced by these two butterflies on the left. When I saw them in the set of accessories Grandma and Lillian got me for my birthday, I immediately thought of Margherita – they look like they were made especially for her, they reflect her style.

  There. I’m satisfied with the result. I set the hat on the counter and walk around it to observe it from all angles. I’d say it has no defects, it’s ready. I look at my wrist watch; it’s five thirty, I can take the rest of the afternoon off. I take the hat and go into the entrance hall, heading for the fourth floor and the apartment of my first client, who has had to wait over a week for her hat. It would have been ready sooner if I hadn’t torn the first version to shreds with my nails. Best not to think about it.

  When I get to the second floor, I hear the sound of the lock turning in Jared’s door. I am overcome by a surge of panic: I don’t want to see him. Suddenly I realize I haven’t developed any defenses against him; in fact, not seeing him for a few days just increased my desire. This isn’t good. Fast as the wind I run up the stairs until I am totally certain he won’t notice me. I sit panting on the last step on which I set my feet and try to catch my breath.

  “Yes, Jeremy,” I hear his deep voice in the stairwell. “I finished this morning. He’ll have to take them all back,” he sounds serious, it must be one of those conversations that used to darken his gaze and make him anxious. “No, no exceptions, the contract has already been signed, the terms laid out.” I’ve never heard him speak so professionally, I never knew this side of him. “Tell him to call me if he’s not ok with it. I don’t like to discuss these things by proxy,” he replies, slightly annoyed. “No, I’m not coming back to Boston, stop asking.” His altered tone hurts my heart. It sounds like he’s regressing to his grey life of work and guilt. And suddenly everything makes sense: him holed up in that apartment, always bent over the computer, his cell phone close at hand, studying incomprehensible graphs and charts without ever letting off steam, without even being able to get his bearings – he felt guilty for what had happened at Robinson’s Industries six months earlier, for having lost that contract and having caused many loyal workers to be laid off. The way he suddenly fled when I tried to introduce him to Father now makes sense: he knew him, he knew who Wendell Bennett was, he had opened his eyes wide and for the first time he had realized who I was. How could I not connect the dots? How could I not understand? It was so obvious.

  Furious again, I stand and resume climbing the stairs to the fourth floor. If I think of how much time he had to tell me the truth it drives me crazy, but when I reach Margherita’s door I am fe
eling dejected and confused again. What I feel is not really anger but disappointment. If it were anger I would probably find the courage to face him, to look him in the eye and tell him how furious I am; instead I avoid his presence like the plague because it hurts to see him and realize how frantically my heart still beats at the thought of meeting his gaze. I’m pathetic.

  I ring Margherita’s bell, trying to concentrate solely on the gift I am holding in my hand. She opens the door and immediately her perfect face lights up in a warm smile.

  “Gil, what a pleasure to see you,” she greets me. “Come in, don’t stand there in the doorway.” She gestures to the living room couch and we sit down together.

  “I came to bring you this,” I say, handing her the hat. “I finally finished it and I wanted to give it to you right away.”

  Margherita takes the hat and turns it over in her hands with an intrigued expression, then stops to admire the ivory butterflies.

  “Oh, Gil, it’s wonderful,” she admits with a dreamy air, without taking her eyes off the gift she has set on her lap as if she were afraid of ruining it if she held it too long. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It’s just a hat. I tried to make it look like you.”

  My admission makes her raise her blue eyes. “Like me?”

  “Well… yes,” I confess, embarrassed by her amazement.

  “You see me as more perfect than I am, Gil,” she turns her gaze back to the hat, “but thank you, I like the idea of being so beautiful in someone’s eyes.” I find myself staring at her, magnificent even wearing a dressing gown tied around her waist, even in those slippers with the two huge daisies, even without a touch of makeup setting off her gaze. How can she not realize it?

  “Let me offer you something to thank you for this wonderful gift,” she quickly stands, sets the hat on a chair in the kitchen, and returns with a tray with two cups, different types of tea, and a tea pot full of hot water. “Since I began hanging around with Jane and Ernest, I’ve become a tea enthusiast, too. I can’t spend a single afternoon without allowing myself this pleasure,” she reveals, letting me choose the flavor I prefer and pouring some water in my cup.

  “They are exceptional people,” I agree with a smile.

  “Oh, everyone here is. You too. And those who aren’t, become so in time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen your face, Gil.”

  “What face?” I become defensive.

  “That dull, sad expression. Even if you try to hide it behind polite smiles, it’s perfectly visible you know?” she points out, sipping her tea.

  “Well… I just need some time to recover,” I confess looking down.

  “Why do you have to recover?” she asks seriously.

  “What do you mean ‘why’?”

  “Recovering isn’t always the right thing to do, Gil. Sometimes you have to sink, you have to touch rock bottom to figure out what you really want.”

  “I know what I want,” I state resolutely.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of it. I think you think you want one thing, but deep down inside you know it’s another, otherwise by now you would have a different expression.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re a strong girl, Gil. If you had really wanted to get over this thing, you would already have begun to do so, and instead you’re still here, commiserating with yourself and secretly hoping it will all go back to how it was.”

  “I don’t hope that it’ll all go back to how it was,” I protest.

  “Yes, you do. You wish you had never found out who Jared actually is. You wish he were still the young man without a past holed up in his apartment; but that’s not how it is, Gil. We all have a past and we’ve all made mistakes in life.”

  “I just wish he hadn’t hidden his from me. I wish he had trusted me more. I would have been able to understand him, I wouldn’t have judged him,” I complain, frustrated, as I think of the promise I made Jared’s aunt, Mrs Mallory. I’ve never liked lies.

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Margherita warns me seriously.

  “Of course I can.”

  “Think of me, Gil. I have a past, too. I’ve already told you that I moved here from New York, but I never told you the real reason.” It’s true, I have no idea why Margherita moved here – I took for granted that she had got fed up with the chaos of city life, since she said she needed some rest, but now that she’s making me consider it more carefully, the explanation is no longer convincing. I look her in the eye waiting to find out what she’s getting at; I don’t see what the reason that brought her to Fall River has to do with Jared’s lies.

  She takes another sip of tea and sets the cup on the tray. It seems she needs to concentrate before she can begin. She takes a deep breath and goes on. “I moved to New York when I was nineteen. My parents couldn’t support me, but I was determined to live my own life. I lived in run down one room apartments for a year, then I found a job that made the life I had always desired possible.”

  “I still don’t see what this has got to do with Jared,” I protest with conviction.

  “I began attending fashion shows, theater premiers, fancy hotels, parties organized by celebrities. I was happy, Gil, very happy, until I understood that there was a price to pay for all I had achieved,” she looks down and clenches her fingers in her lap. “I got sick and everything changed. The parties, the luxury, the nice clothes, the money, the jewelry – nothing of what I had could get me the only thing I really wanted: my health. Too late I realized I had chosen the wrong road, and that is when I decided to take a new one. I left it all – my house, my routine – and I moved here to Fall River. I was looking for a place to start over again, where no one knew me, and Jane gave me that,” a smile that softens the look in her eyes appears on her perfect face and she looks at me again. “I was an escort in New York,” she reveals with a candor that scares me.

  “What?” I look at her, dumbfounded, incapable of processing her words in my mind.

  “Yes, a call girl, as many people called me. I had many rich clients and was very sought after, until…” she pauses a moment, a flash of pain in her eyes, “… until I contracted HIV.”

  I open my eyes wide. I can’t believe it, it absolutely isn’t possible. Margherita sets a hand on mine, inviting me to look at her.

  “Now tell me, Gil: if I had told you all this the first day we met in Jane’s apartment, would you have made a hat like this for me?” I am transfixed – immobile and dumbstruck. I don’t know how to reply, I have nothing to say. “I know you don’t want to be judgmental, but sometimes we let prejudice condition our opinions, even if that’s not what we want.” Her sweet tone forces me to think over what she has just said. If I think of her, I really can’t change my opinion, I can’t not see how attentive to others she is, how solar. Now I know she has her skeletons in the closet, but this doesn’t make me appreciate her less. I have come to know her a bit, and her revelation has done nothing but strengthen the idea that she is a brave woman, capable of letting go of a life of luxury to go in search of herself.

  “I’m sorry Maggie, but I think so. I would have made the same hat for you. Maybe I would have added a few highlights on the ribbon, but it would have been the exact same hat,” I confirm decidedly. Her expression clears, so much that for a moment I get the feeling that it cost her a lot to tell me about her past, and that she seriously feared she’d lose my respect or my affection. “I appreciate your courage, that’s all that’s changed.”

  “You’re a good person, Gil, as are Jane, Ernest, Sam, and even Jared. All I want is to see you happy and right now you aren’t.” It is my turn to look down. It’s true, I’m not. I should be – I’m fulfilling my dream, everything is going well, the shop is about to open to the public, I’ve managed to make a decent number of hats and I like them all, none excluded, but… I’m not at all happy.

  “I will be,” I state, trying to find a conviction I do not possess. />
  “You will only if you manage to look inside yourself and understand that you want to give Jared a second chance. You love him, Gil, and this won’t change.” There it is, the uncomfortable truth coming from the perfect lips of the person who should know me the least.

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” I admit in spite of myself, letting myself sink dejectedly against the back of the couch.

  “Why do you insist on denying your feelings?” she demands.

  “I don’t know, Jane and Ernest said the same thing. He mentioned ‘healthy selfishness,’ but I really don’t know what it is.”

  “Certainly Jared didn’t want to cause your father’s layoff, nor anyone else’s,” she urges me to reflect.

  “I know. I know that. If you had seen Father’s face when he came back from his last day at Robinson’s Industries – how dejected, disconcerted he was – he wasn’t himself anymore… But that’s not the point. If Jared hadn’t felt remorse for what he did, he wouldn’t have been in that state. When I met him, he spent all his time in front of the computer, he never slept, and was always irritable,” I confess.

  “So what is the problem?” she insists.

  “The problem is he didn’t tell me. He didn’t trust me, he always thought I was incapable of understanding him and this… well, this is difficult to get over. I can’t pretend nothing happened.”

  “Maybe he was afraid of being judged.”

  “He should have talked to me, I would have understood,” I insist. How could he think I was so stupid I wouldn’t listen to him?

  “You can’t know how things would have gone, nor can you blame him for not being bold enough to risk it. He cares about you.”

  “But he doesn’t trust me, and if there is no trust, everything else will fail.”

  “I think he trusts you. Why don’t you guys talk about it? Go to him, listen to what he has to say,” she urges me with a smile.