Letters From The Ledge

by Meyers, Lynda

  He stood up too but dropped the blazer back onto the couch and took my face in his hands again. When he pulled away from my mouth I was having a little trouble standing on my own volition. The music was thumping somewhere in the distance, and when I opened my eyes, his were smiling into them. He reached his face into my ear and whispered, “You did” then kissed my neck.

  I shuddered involuntarily and for the first time in a long time I was rendered speechless. Luckily he didn’t notice. At least, I don’t think he did.

  Finn picked up his jacket and slipped it back on. “Shall we go find David and Kate then?”

  I tried to swallow, my mouth searching for that second drink. “Yeah. Definitely.”

  We walked out into the heat of the haze and I had to readjust my thinking. Kate and David were on the dance floor just below us and she caught my eye as I headed down the steps. Whispering something to David, the two of them made a beeline straight for us. She immediately grabbed my hands and pulled me with her, apologizing to Finn on her way by.

  We pushed our way through the mob toward one of the bathrooms and as soon as we were inside Kate locked the door behind her. She was all kinds of wobbly, and slurring badly.

  “Hey…so… you, weren’t supposed to disappear like that.” Her fingernail was dangerously close to my eyelid.

  I pulled my head back slightly. “Hey, so…how many Kamikazes have you had Kate?”

  “Me?! You’re the one drinking poison, not me!” She stumbled back against the stall door.

  “I’ve had one drink Kate, and that was a while ago. I’m perfectly fine. You, on the other hand, are almost ready for bed.”

  “I know, right? Is it that obvious? I really like him. That boy can move!”

  “David?”

  “Yes, David! Who did you think I was talking about?”

  I ignored her question. It was late, and I was suddenly in no mood. The two debaters in my head had caused a bloody war that was threatening its way toward my heart, and there was no way that was happening. Not on a first date. Not again.

  “Kate I have to go.”

  “What?! You can’t leave! And where were you anyway? Did you sleep with him?”

  “No, of course not! I was gone, like–five minutes.”

  Kate blinked her eyes at me. “I may be ahead of you on the drinks but you’ve been gone for at least an hour.”

  I pulled out my phone. She was right, of course. I’d left her alone with a new guy for longer than thirty minutes, which was a breach of our standard agreement, so she had a right to be mad. But I just couldn’t stay.

  “He got to you, didn’t he?” Kate was straightening her shirt and tucking herself up in preparation for reentry.

  “Kate, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Look at me.” She pulled at my face. “Look at me!”

  I can bullshit the whole world except for Kate. When I finally looked at her she smiled sadly. “Ok. Let’s get you out of here.”

  “What about David?”

  “I’ll give him my number. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?”

  “I didn’t think it was his heart you were after.” I winked at her and she turned to let us out of the bathroom.

  “It’s not. But with any luck a little hard-to-get will make his other parts grow fonder too.” I laughed and she stopped with the door half open. “So what are we going to tell them?”

  “How about the truth?”

  “Oh man. This is worse than I thought!” Kate laughed. “Why don’t you let me do the talking?”

  “Maybe because you’re slurring?”

  “I am not!”

  “Right. Whatever you say.”

  We made our way back to the table and found the two of them sitting there much like they looked when we’d gotten into the cab earlier. Not really expectant, just kind of mellow and almost…natural. It was so surreal, like the four of us had been performing this routing together for years. I think that’s the part that threw me the hardest–the total lack of expectation that bordered on apathy. Neither one of them seemed in a hurry to jump in the sack, and that could only mean one of two things: either they were getting plenty, and it really didn’t matter to them, or… it really didn’t matter to them. I was banking on the former, because the latter seemed utterly ridiculous.

  As soon as we got to the table the music slowed down again and David pulled Kate toward the dance floor. Her protests were quickly hushed by something he whispered in her ear. So much for her doing the talking.

  “Nice timing. Your handiwork again?” I nodded upward, referring to the change in tempo.

  Finn just shook his head and stared at me. He patted the spot next to him in the booth and said simply “Why don’t we sit this one out?” He never took his eyes off me.

  My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and strange tears threatened at the corners of my eyes. If I cried it would be over. I fought for control. He seemed to know instinctively that I wanted to leave, but he didn’t say a word. He just waited for me to talk.

  “Finn, I…”

  He sighed and looked down at the table. “…Appreciate the drink but really have to get going?” He was fiddling with his glass, waiting for my reply. When I couldn’t form the words he looked up. “It’s written all over your face. You’re terrified.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “What I don’t understand is, what have I done wrong? I thought we were having a nice time?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh I understand. I understand more than you think I do.”

  I felt the color creep up my neck. “I just wasn’t expecting…this. I wasn’t ready for this. I’m not–ready for this.” I sounded like an idiot and I knew it.

  Finn put his elbows up on the table and leaned in close, looking right through me. “Look, it wasn’t like I tossed my drink all over your shirt on purpose, but something happened here tonight and I don’t think we can ignore that. I don’t think I want to ignore it. Now if you do, then I’ll be the gentleman and step away, but I think you’re making a big mistake.”

  He was dangerously close to kissing me again. I watched his eyes travel there and back, but he kept his distance steady. “I’d like to see you again.” He slid a business card toward me. “But it’s going to have to be your call.”

  He’d had the card ready when I got there. How could he have known that I was going to– I just sat there blinking. The watered down Caipirinha was still sitting there. I looked down at the glass. “I don’t suppose you’ve slipped a roofie in there and I’ll wake up tomorrow with no memory of the next few hours?”

  “A what?” He looked puzzled. It was actually adorable. This hole was so, so much bigger than I thought.

  “Never mind.” I picked up the glass and downed the entire thing. When I looked up at Finn he had a sort of hopeful smile on his face and I had to laugh out loud. I pocketed the business card and slid a little closer to him. “Thanks for ruining my shirt.” I leaned toward him then and he met me there. Sweet and soft, the lime mixed with Vodka in an unforgettable mélange.

  I couldn’t have written a better exit scene, so I shimmied my way out of the booth and stood up. I didn’t dare open my mouth again, so I simply smiled and turned around. Kate ran over to me as I was leaving, grabbing my arm. No sense mincing words. I just gave it to her straight.

  “I’m going home. I’m going to bed. I don’t want to talk, and I don’t want company, so if you want to stay, stay. Have a blast. Call me in the morning.”

  She looked over her shoulder at David, who was still waiting on the dance floor. Finn had already disappeared from our booth. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Have fun.” I kissed Kate on the cheek. “Call me tomorrow.”

  She grinned and hugged me. “I will. Thanks!”

  It never took much encouragement for Kate, and she and David actually seemed fairly well matched. Why should my stupidity cost her a good time? She was gone before I’d finished waving h
er off. I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself, and made my way toward the door. Time to let another frozen soul take my place in the fire. Maybe Finn would have better luck with one of them. He’d certainly be better off, he just didn’t know that yet.

  I was relatively unprepared for the cold wind that hit my face as I walked outside, but no sooner had I slipped into my jacket than one of the bouncers was touching my shoulder and pointing me toward a warm, waiting cab.

  “For me? You shouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t.” He opened the door for me and I ducked down onto the seat. He stuck his head in after me. “The driver will wait till you get inside.”

  “He’ll what? What are you talking about?” But he closed the door on my question and tapped the top of the cab twice. As we drove away I saw Finn standing in the shadow of the building, watching, hands stuffed in his pockets.

  I should have known better than to slam that second drink, but it was a necessary kind of numb. Besides that I felt strangely sober. The swimming in my head had considerably less to do with Cachaca than this puzzle of a man who would stand in the shadows and yet see me home safely.

  He’d lobbed the ball squarely into my court, and he was waiting. Problem was, I’d lost my finesse, and technically speaking, my name was still on the injured reserve list. I wasn’t even sure if I still knew how to handle the ball.

  But the passion was there, lingering. I could feel it like an ember in my belly. Finn had blown on it–stirred the ashes, and it was growing warmer by the minute. He was right, of course. I was terrified. Unfortunately, mixing fear with passion is what drives me forward–usually right over the cliff and toward certain death.

  But oh, what a sweet death it would be…

  Chapter 4

  Finn says that what you focus on, you make room for, but I’m pretty sure that was Qui-Gon Jinn. Or Yoda. Come to find out Finn’s a big Star Wars fan, which doesn’t seem to fit him at all. Like I said, the man is a puzzle and by the way, I’m not overly fond of puzzles. I’m the kind of person who prefers simple, logical, preferably painless solutions to a problem. So I figured if I put enough focus on something else, I could squeeze out all the extra space in my heart and mind, leaving no room for a new relationship.

  It seemed like a perfectly brilliant plan when my subconscious conceived it. Once I thought it through of course, I realized it made no sense at all. That tends to be the problem with subconscious conception–it’s hardly ever immaculate. But by then it was too late.

  I spent those first few days after we met focused on my writing. I almost had myself convinced that there was no Finn–that the man standing in the shadows was merely an apparition–a reflection of my lack. The antithesis of my need for control.

  The Times had called and offered me a bi-weekly column on a three-month trial. I started writing and I didn’t stop for nearly forty-eight hours straight. I stayed holed up in my apartment eating Nutty Bars and drinking vitamin water and vats of coffee, sleeping on my keyboard and on my couch and waking up constantly from strange dreams, with words drowning in my head, begging to be rescued from the depths. I couldn’t write fast enough.

  I was writing article specs, special interest pieces; I even worked on my novel with renewed vigor. And, just as Finn predicted, a new character showed up in my fiction: a mysterious foreigner with a chivalrous heart. It was bad. It was worse than bad.

  It was pathetic.

  By the third day when Kate knocked on my door, I still hadn’t showered and I must have scared her pretty good, because she started snapping pictures on her cell phone and pushing me toward the bathroom.

  She sniffed at me. “Have you been drinking?”

  I just stared at her. “What? No! Of course not!”

  “Oh my God. Oh. My. God! Look at you!”

  “What is your problem? And what are you taking pictures for anyway?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  I looked down at my favorite sweats and moccasins. “I’m comfortable.”

  “You look homeless.”

  “I’m writing.”

  This stopped the clicking of her phone’s camera, at least temporarily. “You’re writing? Really?”

  “Yes. Really. And I’m on a roll, so don’t judge me.”

  “Ok Ok. I won’t judge, but answer me one question: When’s the last time you left the apartment?”

  “It’s cold out.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  I didn’t.

  “You have been out since the other night.” She looked toward my kitchen area. The dirty dishes betrayed me. Another photo was snapped.

  “Hey! Stop that!” I tried to swipe her camera but she pulled her arm away just in time.

  “Just…go take a shower. We’re going to dinner.”

  “I already ate.”

  “Yeah. I can see that.” She shut me in the bathroom. “Chinese, Pizza, Mexican…Any other take-out genres I’ve missed?”

  I turned on the shower. “Don’t forget Nutty Bars!”

  I could hear her crinkling wrappers on the other side of the door. “Right. How could I forget? Some organizational guru you are! Look at this place! It’s like a bomb went off in here.”

  The shower did feel pretty good. Through the warm rain I could hear Kate banging around my apartment. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she seemed really pissed off, so I decided to take my time.

  When I finally emerged in my towel she was sitting on my couch eating a Nutty Bar. “They’re good, right?”

  She just stared at me. “Well, at least you don’t look like a hermit anymore.”

  “I’m not a hermit! Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “Have you even seen another human since…” She picked up the jeans that I’d been wearing the night of the Yankees game. “Since we went out the other night? Jesus Truly.”

  When she lifted my jeans a card fell out of the pocket. It was Finn’s card. I stopped toweling my hair. There was a moment of awkward silence and I swear I saw an actual light bulb turn on above her head before she looked up. “Has he called you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you called him?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  I resumed my toweling. “C’mon. You know better than to ask me that.”

  Kate was turning the card over in her fingers. “All this texting back and forth the last couple of days–all this talk about David. I never even asked. I just assumed you’d been seeing him. I mean, I’m sorry…I knew you were upset the other night, but Truly, he was perfect! What happened?”

  I ducked into my room for a bra and some underwear, and then came back for the jeans. I could say they were my only clean pair, but that would be a lie. Suddenly I just wanted to be wearing them again.

  I told you it was pathetic.

  I picked up the pink top – also still crumpled in the spot I’d left it, and walked it into the bedroom laundry. I tried smelling it, but there was no hint of him. I don’t think he was wearing cologne that night, yet I vividly remembered how he smelled. Warm and clean and somehow soft, but not like “Downy-soft”. His softness came from someplace else. Someplace I’d never been. And frankly it still scared the hell out of me.

  No amount of take-out food was going to get me over that hurdle, and I knew it. I was just procrastinating, which is something I absolutely disdain in the rest of my life, yet have a special knack for when comes to relationships. My therapist says there’s a link there– a thread that needs to be pulled on. I say leave the poor thread alone.

  I tossed the shirt and picked out a black sweater, then headed back to the bathroom for a couple of hair tricks. I was going to skip the makeup until I saw my face in the mirror and realized I looked like my mother when she was going through chemo–kind of pasty and swollen. Kate was right. I did look like a hermit. I did my best with a quick coating of tinted moisturizer, a little blush, mascara and lip-gloss, but it was no use. I sighed. Maybe we could p
ick a restaurant with mood lighting.

  “So? Where do you want to eat?”

  When I came back out again Kate was paging through The Times. “I don’t know. I’m not really hungry anymore. I just ate that Nutty Bar.” She smiled at me. Kate was a good egg.

  “Hey. Don’t knock Little Debbie. We have a special kind of relationship.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t keep running to Little Debbie every time you get scared. You’ll end up big and fat.” Her smile was sad. “And lonely.”

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her up off my couch. “How could I possibly be lonely with friends like you around, hm? Come on, we’re out of here!”

  I reached into my pocket and fingered the card. High noon was fast approaching. I could feel it in my bones. And after that? Taps.

  I’d probably be better off marrying my therapist.

  After my mom died, things got a little rough. My dad couldn’t really handle it–and by ‘it’ I mean my little sister and me. I was thirteen when mom got sick, fourteen when she died. My sister was only twelve, but in Queens, twelve is more like twenty, and fourteen might as well be thirty. For about a year mom was in and out of the hospital and it was just Jenny and me after school every day.

  At first she tried to be good, helping me as much as she could to make dinners and wash dad’s work shirts, but we had to take her off laundry duty when she turned all dad’s light blue, embroidered shirts a speckled kind of pink. It was like a stain he wore every day–a stain that told everyone down at the auto body shop just how bad it had gotten at home. I tried to get those stains out but I couldn’t, and we couldn’t afford to buy him all new shirts, so there was nothing to be done. Never mind that Jenny’s dance uniform got ruined in the same load. We couldn’t replace that either. With mom not working we were barely making it.

  It wasn’t the cancer that killed her in the end. She developed some weird kind of clotting reaction that caused her to bleed out of every pore and orifice she had. It was fairly disgusting, and pretty frightening. They did everything they could to reverse it, pouring blood and fluids back into her just as fast as she was losing it, but it didn’t seem to matter. She got weaker and weaker, and one afternoon as I was sitting there in the hospital room, trying to work on my Algebra, she just slipped away. No fan fare, no big crash-cart scene like on TV… the line just went flat and the nurses ran in, but she’d signed some kind of an order not to do anything heroic if her heart stopped, so they just stood there looking as stupid as I felt. Jenny was at dance class when it happened.