by Roxy Harte
I don’t answer, allowing a heavy silence to fall between us.
“Did you ever think that maybe I’m as messed up in the head about relationships as you are? Because I am and I don’t want to point blame at anyone for being the way I am. I just am. Sheila was always trying to analyze me, telling me why I was feeling the way I was feeling, pointing at things that happened in my childhood to make me feel like I’m not one- hundred-percent girl, or one-hundred-percent boy, but some kind of unnatural freak in the middle. She had theories about why I couldn’t commit to her, why I was infatuated with you... I just don’t want to have to think so hard when it comes to relationships. Love shouldn’t be so hard.”
“You’re right,” I agree. “It should be easy, unconditional, undemanding.”
We’re both silent after that. I close my eyes, realizing that as much as I wanted her body and her strength in my life, I’m not altogether certain that it was love making me pursue her. Did I need a Simon replacement? Or worse, was I just so terrified of raising a baby alone that I was trying to create something with her so that I wouldn’t have to do it alone? Oh God. “I gotta go!”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Fine. There’s something I have to do,” I tell her in a rush. “Thanks for talking to me. I’ll leave you alone now.” I hang up and I don’t answer when she calls back. Instead, I get out of bed and get dressed. I am not going to sit around waiting for a fairytale. I’m going to get back to living my life.
Chapter Seventeen
♥
Simon sounds as surprised to hear my voice when I call him as Geri sounded when I told her I had to go. “Are you certain Tokyo is ready for Simone Sinclair?”
“Definitely.” I hear the hope in his voice. I knew it all along. He didn’t need me, he needed me...and in the end it is just remembering who you are dealing with that makes all the difference.
“I’m going to need a house, not an apartment, you are going to have to arrange transport for my Lotus, and I’m there as the co-owner and producer. I get to hire the directors, consultants, writers, and actors as I see fit.”
“Like I said, Simone, it’s your baby. How soon can you get your cute little ass to Tokyo?”
“I’ll let you know. I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning and my travel dates will hinge on that.”
“You’re still going to have a baby.” He makes it a statement, not a question.
“That’s the plan, Simon. Now find me a house in Tokyo as nice as the one I’m living in and I’ll let you know about my travel schedule tomorrow night.”
♥
The official prognosis from the doctor is that it is too early to tell. I may have lost the baby. I may still have a chance at a successful pregnancy. I’ve been instructed to take a home pregnancy test on Friday and then another one every day for five days until I get a positive result or, at the end of the fifth day, it is determined by ultrasound that the embryos didn’t implant. I continue taking the progesterone to thicken the wall of my uterus. Great, more hormones, more crying jags. But at least the in-vitro hasn’t been ruled a failure.
As much as I want to drive home and crawl into bed with the teddy bear that Geri bought me, I don’t. There’s too much to do if I am going to move to Tokyo in a week and, regardless of my pregnancy test results, I am leaving here in seven days. My remaining eggs are frozen and travel between Tokyo and Seattle isn’t that difficult, so I can come back for the procedure. I’ll just need a doctor in Tokyo to supervise my hormone schedule.
Simon called to tell me that a real estate agent downtown is expecting me at noon to show me three choices. That gives me forty minutes to cross town.
I still can’t believe I am moving to Tokyo.
I can’t imagine what has possessed me to choose this path, but it seems right, and I feel more powerful than I have in weeks. Taking charge of my life has made a huge improvement in my mood and honestly, I don’t think I gave Tokyo a full chance before and maybe that was in part because I was so worried about Geri’s opinion of me. Well, screw that. That’s what I’ve learned in this mess.
Love is unconditional and undemanding.
Sure, there’s always room for compromise, but I can’t be someone I’m not.
It’s raining cats and dogs as I drive from the doctor’s office to the real estate office across town and I let out a big breath when I finally pull in to their parking lot. I look at myself in my rearview mirror. I look stressed. Deep grooves pressed between my eyebrows. I’m not running away, I’m taking charge of my life.
“I certainly hope that’s the truth of it,” I tell my reflection and then I race through the heavy downpour to the office, splashing through puddles, and really looking forward to living somewhere other than Seattle for a while.
I close my umbrella and place it in a caddy before holding out my hand to the agent, a petite Asian woman who appears stunned to meet me when I say, “Simone Sinclair.”
“Cho Nishimura.” She smiles and finally takes my hand. There is no trace of a Japanese accent and I wonder how many generations back her lineage goes in the U.S. “I’m a huge fan. Really. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
I smile. It feels wonderful to be Simone Sinclair again. As I follow the woman to her office, I realize I never was very good at being plain, old Sarah. “I only hope I do not disappoint you today.” “Uh-oh,” I say.
“Mr. Kramer was very clear that you wanted a house, but in the city limits, you will find yourself more comfortable in one of the new high-rises, and they can be very accommodating.”
I nod, but am far from enthusiastic. “I’m not sure I want to be in a high-rise. The possibility of earthquakes make me nervous.”
“I understand,” she says. “But really, with the new advances in construction, I think you will find that the high-rises are very safe. I have a report of the damaged areas from the last earthquake and I think you will see that most of the severe damage was in the older sections of town. Before the new building codes were in place.”
I grit my teeth as she pulls up her computer screen. I hate to admit it, but as she proceeds with her presentation, I’m impressed with her thoroughness in easing my fears and pointing out the level of luxury and amenities offered by going new. It isn’t hard to see why Simon sent me to her, she knows Tokyo. It turns out that her favorite apartment is also mine. By Tokyo standards, it is huge and is going to cost me a sizeable portion of my retirement money, but I stand to make it back within the first few years if Simon’s predictions are on target. And since I can’t have a house with a yard, I can at least have the one of the most luxurious apartments in Tokyo. It offers a beautiful view of Tokyo Bay, a split floor plan with accommodations for a live-in housekeeper/nanny on one side of the living space and three additional bedrooms on the other side.
Cho also provided all of the information I would require to find a suitable nanny, get my driver’s license, and rent furnishings. I hadn’t considered what I would do with my house in Seattle, but Cho had an answer to that as well—temporary leasing as a vacation rental. All that I would be required to do would be to store my most valuable belongings, or have them shipped to Tokyo, and hire a management company. “By keeping it temporary, you can make sure that it is available when you need it.” I nod.
An hour later, I am the lessor of a luxury high-rise apartment in Tokyo and lessee of a vacation home in Seattle.
“You will be very pleased with the view, location, and amenities,” Cho assures me and I believe her. There is also a park, an international market, and an elementary school within a block’s walk. Honestly, the floor plan sold it, everything else is just icing.
My next stop is a moving and storage company. They send me home with two crates for my international shipping needs and the promise of two men in two weeks to box and haul the rest of the important items into long-term storage. Of course, the main furnishings will stay and I hope I don’t regret that choice, even though Cho repeatedly assured me before I lef
t her office that the executive clientele who would be renting from me would take as good a care of my things as I would.
My final stop is the drug store. I’m not wasting any time. I buy seven pregnancy tests, one for every day of the week, my intention to use the first one in the morning.
But I can’t wait that long and use it as soon as I get home. Negative.
That’s doesn’t mean I’m not pregnant, I tell myself and then I crawl into bed, hugging the teddy bear, hoping like crazy that tomorrow’s test result shows positive. I know, I know. I should wait until Friday.
I can’t...I’m just not that patient.
I sleep, waiting, hoping...and dream about my future in Tokyo with a new job and a baby to share my life with. I don’t wake up until midday Tuesday.
I stumble down to the kitchen for something to eat, having not eaten since Saturday. I eat like I haven’t eaten in a week and then I start to think about when my last meal really was, not Saturday, maybe the night before the procedure, because I only remember juice and water since. I open the fridge for more orange juice and think for a second that I hear a car in my drive, but know it must only be a car going around the curve beyond my gate. When I hear the doorbell, I jump, spilling juice on the counter.
I walk slowly to the front door and when I catch my reflection in the hall mirror, I almost don’t open the door after all. But I do because I suspect Tina or perhaps Meg...
And then Geri is in front of me, pushing me inside, closing the door. My back is suddenly pressed against the wall and she is kissing me, hard, deep, greedy, hungry, needy, and I respond to her like I have every time she kisses me. I cry, but I manage to keep kissing her back.
My mouth can’t get enough of hers as our tongues collide.
“We can’t keep denying this,” she manages to say.
“I don’t want to deny this,” I promise her. I roll over, waking with a start. I feel the bed beside me, it’s cold...it was just a dream. Just a dream.
I swallow hard, realizing how badly I wanted her. And how desperately I’ve been pushing her from my thoughts. If I don’t think about her, I can pretend that none of it happened. I won’t feel like my heart is breaking.
My feet and legs are lead as I walk down the stairs to the kitchen. I open the fridge and pull out the orange juice. I wait for the crunch of tires on my driveway, but there isn’t a crunch. The only sound coming through the open window is birds. And rain. It’s drizzling softly. Big surprise.
I fill a glass with orange juice and walk to the front door, open it and hope to see her Jeep. It isn’t there. Defeated, I sit on the step and watch the rain, the birds, the swirl of tree leaves as the wind blows softly through them. The day smells like damp earth and I realize just how long it’s been since I paid enough attention to my surroundings to notice.
I set my glass on the porch at my feet and stand, walking barefoot out into the soft rain, lifting my face to it. I start walking...through my gate...down the road. The hill is steep leading from my house to the park and although my house sits on the back edge of the park’s boundary, the road winds a mile, maybe two miles to its entrance. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think about it. I keep walking, my bare feet hitting cool, wet asphalt...then the damp gravel of the parking lot...then the coarse mulch of bark and pine needles of the trail.
I’m drawn to the tree I leaned against when Geri made love to me. It looks exactly the same as a dozen other trees, but somehow I know which one it was.
Closing my eyes, I run my fingers over the bark and then I am hugging the tree, sobbing. Sobbing hard. Saying goodbye. I force myself to remember each touch, each caress, each sigh...and then her voice, “I don’t want it to be just sex with you! And that’s what it feels like.”
Simon is in my driveway with a police officer when I finally come home. It is late in the day, almost dusk, and only the deepening dark under the tree canopy made me realize that I should go home. I knew it was raining, drips of water managed to make it through the thick canopy. I didn’t know that it was pouring until I left the forest for the main road. I’m soaked through to my skin by the time I see Simon’s car. And a police car. Simon is standing in my open doorway talking to a police officer when he sees me approaching.
He races to my side. Worry lines his face when he takes in my bare, dirty feet. “You scared me to death! What happened? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I assure him. It is obvious that I am not fine. And to think, it was only yesterday, or the day before, that I’d felt so powerful. I remember belatedly that I was supposed to have met Simon at four.
The officer is relieved that it was a false alarm. I’m glad my assurances that I am fine send him on his way, though he cautions me to be more careful.
Back in the house, sitting across from Simon, wrapped in a blanket with a towel around my wet hair, I tell him I am ready to leave for Tokyo, sooner rather than later. I need to work. I need to get my mind off Geri and off my baby worries before I have a nervous breakdown for real. I don’t tell him my concerns, but I know he knows that I’m at my breaking point.
“What can I do to help?”
I shrug, trying desperately hard not to ask him to make love to me. He still draws me like a magnet. Physically. But mentally, emotionally, he can’t be that man. And I need to try to stop forcing him into a role he can’t fill. I swallow hard, my throat and chest tightening. I’m trying to do the same thing to Geri.
Blinking back tears, I point at the empty crates in the dining room. “Cho Nishimura said to fill those crates with the things I absolutely must have in Tokyo...and what must go with me will not fit in two small crates.”
“What do you want to take?”
I stand, holding out my hand, glad for the warmth of his grip when he takes it and allows me to lead him from room to room, pointing out hundreds of mementos, awards, pictures, artwork, small pieces of antique furniture that I don’t want left to the mercy of strangers.
“I know it’s just stuff,” I wave my hands around helplessly, “but it’s stuff I don’t want to leave behind.”
He slides his hand under my chin, tipping my face up, catching and holding my gaze. “You aren’t coming back are you?”
“Not for a long time, Simon. I need to make a new life and I can’t do that here.”
He nods. “Can you find what you are looking for in Tokyo?”
I smile and it is the first time I’ve smiled in days. “I’m counting on it.”
I watch Simon as he takes charge, calling Cho, calling an international moving company, calling so many people I lose track of what he is saying or doing and am left merely watching in amazement. After a half hour, he sits beside me, taking my hand. “All done. You’ll be stuck in a hotel for a week, but it is a very nice hotel, not in Tokyo, in the country. It’s a spa actually. And they will treat you like a queen there. You are going to feel like a new woman. By the time you arrive in the city, your apartment will be ready, furnished, staffed, and hopefully with all of your crates waiting for you to unpack. Unless you want me arrange that as well. I just merely thought you might want to choose where your art and personal photos and things go.”
“Yes, thank you, I would.” I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“I’ve never seen you so overwhelmed. I’m worried, Simone.” He squeezes my hand. “Is it because you want a baby so badly?”
I hold back tears. “That’s part of it. And part of it is making a fool out of myself.” I shrug. “I fell in love, but it doesn’t seem to be reciprocated.”
“The woman?”
“Yes, Geri.”
“Well, she’s a fool.”
I laugh. It seems suddenly so ridiculous that he is telling me that Geri is a fool for not wanting me after I chased him for two decades.
“We’re both fools,” he amends.
“I’m glad you admit it. There is something else you can do for me.”
“Name it.”
“Stop calling me every
hour on the hour to tell me how much you need me in your life. It’s confusing, and right now I just want to focus on my new career and my new life. It’s time we face facts.” I say we, meaning I. “We haven’t worked out particularly well as relationship material for each other in two decades, so suffice it to say that we are friends. Period.”
“I do love you, Simone.”
“I love you too, Simon, as a friend.”
There is a moment’s silence before he agrees, “I’d rather be your friend than not part of your life at all.”
“Good.” I hug him. “I’d like that too.”
He snickers. “Can we sometimes be friends with benefits?” “Simon!” I shriek, pushing him away, laughing because I think he only half meant it.
“You can’t blame a guy for trying, baby.”
“And you can’t call me baby anymore. I’m the head of our Asian production company. It isn’t professional,” I admonish, shaking my finger at him.
“Yeah, yeah.” He laughs. “When can I leave for this fabulous spa?”
“Is tomorrow soon enough?” I smile and nod, then start pushing him out the door. “I have to pack, you have to go.”
He kisses my cheek at the door and pulls me into a hug. “Welcome back, Simone. I was getting worried about you.”
“Me too,” I say. “Me too.”
Chapter Eighteen
♥
A loud noise startles me awake and then, hearing the whistle of wind whipping around the house, I fully wake up and realize I have no electricity. I walk through the semi-dark house. It is late morning, but the sky is dark and ominous, making it seem like twilight. We have storms in Seattle, but rarely bad ones.
So I am surprised when I look out and see a tree down across the road. “Does it never end?” My bags are packed and ready in the corner of my bedroom.
But it doesn’t look like I’ll be leaving anytime soon. I call Simon, who tells me he’s been trying to call, but the connection doesn’t go through. His voice goes static for a second and then he comes back, and I get, “...worst storm...years...no flight today...”