by Emma Scott
“He says he’s not seeing anyone serious, but I’m sure he must go out. You’ve seen him, right?”
“I have. He’s sex on a stick.”
I nearly lost my balance, and a flush of heat swept over my face. “Yvonne!”
“Isn’t he?”
“He’s…handsome.”
Yvonne snorted. “My grandfather was ‘handsome.’ My grandmother too, come to think of it.”
“I admit, he’s sexy,” I said. “He probably has many manly urges to satisfy and many women to help him.”
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“That sad look on your face is back.”
“What? Stop. It’s…probably jealousy. I have urges too, you know. I haven’t had sex in forever. But I’m not sure this date with Matt is a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“A date with an unknown guy makes me feel like everything I had with Jonah was…disposable. As if all I have to do is wait until enough time goes by and boom. I’m back in the saddle.”
“What more is there?” Yvonne asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I feel like… I can’t follow up being with Jonah by doing something as superficial as dating. Trying out different guys to see if they fit. Kissing them, maybe even sleeping with them, only to break up a week later because it turns out he’s still not over his ex, or he’s not into ‘getting serious,’ or he hates dogs.”
Yvonne quirked her brow. “Hates dogs?”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “All the bullshit that comes with dating. I can’t do it. Not after Jonah. What we had was beyond special. What comes next needs to be special too. Going on one date already feels like a betrayal. It would be a million times worse if I did it over and over again, one stranger after another.”
“Theo’s no stranger.”
I stopped what I was doing and gave her a look.
Yvonne held up her hands. “He’s cute. He’s tatted up, like you. He’s obviously a good man for flying out here to help you like he did. And you two are close. You share a common pain.”
“Yes, because he’s Jonah’s brother,” I said quietly.
“So?”
“So?” My eyebrows shot up. “So that’s…I mean, he’s…”
Yvonne leaned on her hammer. “Yessss? Have you thought about it? Maybe just a little?”
I shook my head. “No. Well, maybe.”
She pursed her lips.
“Okay, yes. Fine, I think about it. I think about him constantly. My favorite part of the day—besides talking to you—is my phone calls with him. But I can’t tell if our friendship is really strong or if I’m just clinging to him for comfort.”
“Maybe,” Yvonne said, “you should try to find out.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m ready. I can’t dump all that confusion and guilt on Teddy. He’s precious to me. So precious, in fact…” I spread my arms out to indicate the house. “I buy a house fifteen hundred miles away from him.”
“You want to know what I think?”
“In the worst way possible.”
“I think something’s happening between you and Theo, and it scares you to pieces.”
A thousand reasons why that was wrong piled up on my lips. I swallowed them all down.
“I think you might be right,” I said softly, and all at once I felt something shift in me. A settling. A Big Something I might have been waiting for.
Yvonne’s smile was gentle. “Keep going, baby. Tell me.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to imagine a life after Jonah,” I said. “A future like other people have, with marriage and kids, and careers we help each other to build. It’s been almost impossible to imagine loving someone else. But when I let myself have that kind of hopeful vision, the only person I see is Teddy.”
Yvonne nodded. “And now the but…”
“But the guilt. And how Beverly would react. And what Oscar and Dena would think. And the worry that I’d mess it up. And the fact that I’m… I’m terrified something will happen to Theo like it did to Jonah.” My eyes stung with sudden tears. “I’ve lost too much already.”
“I know.” Yvonne dropped her sledgehammer and embraced me in a dusty hug. “I know you have.”
“I had Jonah. For a few, short moments that beautiful man was mine and I was his. I’ll never have anything that real or good again, will I? Who gets a second chance like that?”
“The ones who step back up to the table and lay it all out there.” Yvonne pulled away, pushed the hair from my eyes. “You’re not done, Kacey. I know you aren’t. You have more cards to play.”
I smiled through the tears. “I am a universe.”
Yvonne’s eyes widened. “I like that. Yes, you are a universe, right here in this room, and you are not done.”
She put her arm around me, and we surveyed the demolished kitchen.
“You’re starting over again. New life, new place. It’s brave, putting one foot in front of the other. You don’t have to figure it all out at once. Don’t force it, and if something good and real is waiting for you around the corner, it’ll still be there when you’re ready.”
The cabinets were all down, and we were up to our ankles in splintered wood. Dust motes danced in the afternoon light streaming in through the window.
Yvonne gave me a squeeze. “Can you see it yet? Your new home?”
“Not yet.”
“You will, baby. You will.”
Theo
Friday afternoon was dead at the shop. I’d been hoping for a hard job—a client who wanted something intricate to keep my mind off Kacey’s date. Instead, all I got was a young, nervous-looking girl, about twenty years old, who wanted a semicolon on the inside of her right wrist.
Great, I thought. That’ll take me all of ten minutes.
“What’s it mean?” I asked her, loading black ink and a liner needled in my tattoo machine.
“A semicolon is where a writer can choose to end the sentence,” she said, tucking a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “But they don’t. The story goes on. It’s a symbol of hope. To keep going.” She smiled tremulously. “Sometimes I need that reminder.”
I stared at the girl a moment, nodded, this job suddenly taking on a whole new meaning. This is why I do this.
I inked the semicolon onto the young woman’s wrist and when she was done, I thanked her instead of the other way around.
Time crawled.
A glance at the clock said it was just after six. Eight, Kacey’s time.
She was probably on her date right about now.
A new emotion erupted in me to add to the already noxious mix churning in my gut: Pure, old-fashioned jealousy, straight up. No chaser.
The story goes on. Kacey’s story was going on in New Orleans. It wasn’t the same gravitas as the semicolon symbolism, but the idea stuck with me anyway. She was going on. I was stuck. Period.
“Zelda,” I called over the buzzing of Edgar’s gun and the pounding metal music.
She looked up, her hair falling like black silk around her shoulders. Her impossibly large eyes were the greenest I’d ever seen.
“Yessss?” she drawled, when I just stared at her. “Something on your mind?”
“You want to grab a late dinner tonight? A new place opened at the Paris. We could give it a shot.”
Zelda blinked twice, her face expressionless. Then she shrugged. “I could eat.”
“Cool,” I said. Then it’s a date, I thought, but couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. Guilt assailed me. The guilt of a guy cheating on his woman.
Kacey is not your woman. She never has been and she probably never will be.
What was she doing right now? Was she having the time of her life? Was her date keeping his goddamn hands to himself or did she want him to touch her? Were they kissing? Or going to bed? Was she letting him take her dress off, letting him put his mouth on her…
Fuck me.
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I leaned over and mucked around in a drawer, surreptitiously adjusted my crotch.
Now, that’s a date, Fletcher, a voice like Oscar’s cackled in my mind. Dinner with one girl. A hard-on for another.
We closed up shop at seven. Fortunately, Edgar and Vivian said goodnight and split, leaving Zelda and I to make plans without merciless teasing or speculation.
Zelda waited as I locked up, her small frame hunched into her black leather jacket.
“You like Italian?” I asked.
“My last name is Rossi,” she said. “What do you think?
“Martorano’s is the new place in the Paris. Supposed to be good.”
“Works for me.” Her large eyes widened when I opened the passenger door for her. “Thanks. And here I thought chivalry was dead.”
I got behind the wheel and immediately, it felt like a date—a girl in my truck, filling the small cab with her perfume and presence, on our way to a slightly more than casual restaurant.
This is good, I thought. I can do this.
Over dinner, I learned Zelda was a comic book junkie. She was trying to put together a graphic novel. “Eventually, I hope to pitch it to the big ones. Dark Horse or DC.”
“So tattooing is just your day job?”
“It’s the only way to make any consistent money drawing little pictures,” she said with a dry smile.
I nodded and as we talked, I tried to force myself to feel something, anything, for Zelda. She was beautiful. Smart. Sharp sense of humor and a crazy-talented artist to boot. I ran a play-by-play commentary of every observation and feeling. Examining and cross-examining impressions, looking for something more, convincing myself it was there, even though I knew damn well it wasn’t. This wasn’t a date. It was a distraction. Beyond a possible friendship, I didn’t feel one damn thing for her.
It’s not fair. Time to call it.
“Listen, Zelda,” I said, but then my phone buzzed a text. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket. “Sorry, I thought I shut this off.”
It was Kacey.
Terrible date. Awful. Are u free? Need to vent.
A bomb of happiness exploded in my chest. I’d have a few things to say to Viv’s Magic 8 Ball tomorrow. Who’s got your outlook now, bitch?
Zelda cleared her throat pointedly. “Good news?” she asked.
“No, it’s…”
She sighed. “Spill it, T.”
“Spill what?”
“Seriously?” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, you know. This isn’t a date. Or if it is, it’s the worst date in the history of dates.”
I sat back in my chair. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said, waving her hand. “I just ate a twenty-eight dollar ziti and this wine definitely didn’t come from the rack at the grocery store. The food makes up for what I already knew was a sham.”
“You did?”
She nodded. “Right before you visit She Who Shall Not Be Named, you get ridiculously happy. And when you come back, you’re a goopy puddle of misery.”
“It’s that obvious?”
“Yeah.” Zelda reached for a long, crackery breadstick from the cup between us and took a bite. “So what’s Miss Kacey up to tonight?” She batted her eyelashes, still chewing.
“She went on a date and it wasn’t good.”
“Not good for her is good for you. I mean, you do like her.”
“I do,” I said. “And it’s completely fucked because she’s Jonah’s girlfriend.”
“Was Jonah’s girlfriend,” Zelda’s sharp voice turned soft around my brother’s name. “She is no longer Jonah’s girlfriend. It’s been almost a year since she’s been anyone’s girlfriend. The statute of limitations has run out on self-imposed celibacy. How old is she?”
“Twenty-four.”
“She’s a twenty-four year old woman. So let’s say she lives to be…seventy-five. What, she’s supposed to stay celibate for fifty years? Never love anyone again? Be alone forever?”
“No, but…” I drummed my fingers on the linen tablecloth. “If she’s going to be with someone else, it probably shouldn’t be me.”
“Why not?” Zelda asked.
“Where do I start? I danced with her at a wedding and Jonah’s best friend looked like he wanted to murder me. Worse, my mother takes a lot of comfort from her. Kacey dropped out of nowhere and made Jonah really fucking happy at the end of his life. It’s a huge deal to Mom. And to our friends. And to me, too. She loved him right up to the end.” I rubbed my hands over my eyes. “How do I take that away from my mother? Why would I even try?”
Zelda’s expression became pinched. “Why would that take away something from your mom? Don’t you think it would make her happy to know you’re loved too?”
“We’re not talking love anyway,” I said, shaking my head. “My last visit to New Orleans, Kacey friend-zoned me hard. Or maybe I friend-zoned her. Whichever the case, she needs the space to figure her shit out.”
“Yeah, you’re giving her space all right,” Zelda laughed. “She lives four states away. No one can say you’re being too needy.” She leaned forward on her arms, pointed the breadstick at me. “You know what I think your problem is?”
“Enlighten me.”
“You want to be with her, but you’ve never had a serious relationship and you’re afraid of fucking it up. Right so far?”
“Maybe.”
“You want to give her space, let her recover on her own terms, without looking like you’ve been dry-humping her leg for the last year.”
A laugh barked out of me. “Something like that.”
Zelda narrowed her large green eyes at me. “Have you two ever…?” She sawed the bread stick in and out of the O of her thumb and index finger.
“Jesus, Zelda.”
“Well?”
“No. We haven’t even kissed. And I feel like a junior high school dork talking about this.”
“You should talk about this. With her. If you want her, tell her. Fly to wherever she is tonight, and tell her.”
“Tell her what? I don’t have the words,” I said. “Jonah did. He could say all the right things to make her feel special, or at least tell her how he felt. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not good at romance and shit.”
“Not calling it ‘romance and shit’ is probably a good place to start.”
I shrugged. “Straight sex is easier for me.”
“Fantastic.” Zelda rolled her eyes. “I’m on a non-date with the last nice guy in Vegas, who’s probably a beast in the sack and happens to be in love with someone else. Who’s luckier than me?”
“I’m not in love with her.”
Zelda rested her cheek in her hand, stirred her beleaguered breadstick in her water glass. “Liar.”
“I don’t know what I feel. I’m fucking frustrated. Is that what love is? Trying to do right by everyone while feeling like my guts are inside out? I can’t think about, sleep with or even touch another woman.”
Zelda’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t slept with anyone else? Since when?”
“Dude, I haven’t so much as jerked off in year.”
Zelda stared at me for a moment, then blinked and shook her head. “I feel like I should drink some water and have you tell me that again so I can do a spit-take.”
“Yeah, well…”
“What about all those dates Edgar is always teasing you about? The blonde and her party? The redhead with the snake on her ankle?”
I shrugged. “Lies.”
“I’ve heard you blow off Edgar a hundred times, saying you had a woman waiting. Where do you really go?”
“Church.”
“Say that again,” she said, taking a sip of water.
I smiled into my own water glass. “I go see Jonah’s installation. It’s still at the Wynn. I just sit there and think. I don’t pray or anything, but it’s like…sitting in a cathedral.”
Zelda shifted in her chair. I looked up and her green eyes we
re heavy and soft. The sharp edge of sarcasm fell away, revealing a soft vulnerability underneath. “I see.”
“It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. Jesus, why do you dismiss or belittle every single emotion that crosses your heart?”
I stared. “I don’t…” I thought of Kacey in the cemetery in New Orleans, how I’d kept my mouth shut at maybe the worst time.
“We’re just friends, right?” Kacey asked.
Zelda leaned on her hand, smiled. “Tell me.”
“Fucking hell. Okay, here it is. Jonah knew I cared about Kacey. He saw it, somehow. And he told me, right before he died, he wanted me to take care of her and…”
“And?” Zelda asked softly.
“He wanted me to be with her.”
I let out a long breath. A sigh over a year old. Across the table, Zelda’s eyes were wide, but no judgment was in them. No shock, no disgust, no opinion. Only a thoughtful, considering gaze.
“I haven’t told anyone about this,” I said. “I mean, no one.”
She nodded slowly. “Least of all Kacey.”
“I’ll never tell her,” I said. “It’s impossible. First of all, she’d think I was making it up. Manipulating or guilt-tripping her into feeling something. Second, I don’t want to. If she and I are going to happen, it has to be honest. It has to come from her heart. On its own. Otherwise, how would I know it was real?”
Zelda nodded. “Yeah, I get that.” She tossed a lock of straight black hair over her shoulder. “So what are you going to do?”
“I have no fucking clue,” I said, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I’m stuck. Suspended. Like the Hanged Man.” I looked up. “It’s a Tarot card…”
“I know what it is,” Zelda said, putting her chin on her hand. “Why don’t you just say fuck it, and move to New Orleans? Open a shop. Be closer to her. Let it play out.”
“My mother needs me. I can’t move away. And Kacey just bought a damn house. She’s never moving back here. Vegas is too full of memories of Jonah. She wants a new life. It’s better she finds someone with no connection to Vegas or to Jonah, and I’m both.”
“What about you, then? You going to become a monk?”
I shrugged. “I’ll get over it. Move on.”
“There you go dismissing again.”