“What makes you think we’d get anywhere with this conversation in the middle of the night?” I sputtered. “We’ve been going in circles for hours.”
“There’s one solution we haven’t considered yet.”
“What’s that?”
“We could both go to Nepal and take Paris with us instead of me staying here with her.”
I toyed with this idea for a moment, if only for the satisfaction it gave me to imagine my brother’s face when he saw our mother waltz into a Kathmandu hotel, giant flight bag in one hand, his baby in the other.
“You know we can’t do that,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. The death rate for kids under five in Nepal is phenomenal. There’s malaria, typhoid, hepatitis…”
“Shush, Jordy! You sound like your father, all gloom and doom!”
“My father, who you will call tomorrow, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking that one over. Maybe after I go out for breakfast with Louise.”
“You’re going out with her again this morning?” I asked.
She nodded, smiling slightly. “It’s the most fun I’ve had in years.”
“How did you meet Louise, anyway? I don’t remember introducing you.”
“Remember that morning you went to the market with Ed? Well, I was having such a terrible time with the baby in the bath that Louise heard the racket. She came downstairs like the house was on fire. At first I did think she was a bit odd.”
“A bit,” I agreed.
“Still, she was wonderful with the baby,” Mom said. “Played peekaboo with a washcloth until I had that child clean as a whistle, then helped me dress her. So we got to talking, you know, about me and my situation.”
“What do you mean? What situation?” I swallowed hard. What had I missed?
The air mattress squeaked beneath her as Mom swiveled around to face me. I’d offered her my bed when she first arrived, but of course she wouldn’t hear of putting me on the floor.
“The thing is, I’m tired of living such a pale little life, Jordan,” she said. “I want a life in living color! Coming to see you was the first step.”
My heart hurt, hearing this admission. It dawned on me then that one of the toughest things about being an adult was realizing that your parents were in pain, and you didn’t ever know it. Though I suppose that Cam and I had, on some pale level, which is why we always steered clear of emotional interactions with either of our parents.
“Well, Mom,” I said, “like you used to tell me, you have to make a plan and follow it through.”
“I told you that?” Mom snorted. “No wonder you and Cam left home. Huh. Now I would tell you two something completely different.”
“Like what?” I held my breath, waiting.
My mother’s voice was so soft that I had to strain to hear her. “Follow what you know is true, and you’ll have fewer regrets than I did, Jordy. And by the way? You need to start doing that right this minute.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, isn’t there somebody you ought to visit before you leave for Nepal?” My mother fell back onto her air mattress and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “Since you’ve got a built-in babysitter and all.”
I stared at her for a minute, then climbed out of bed and slipped into a t-shirt and jeans. I squatted by the mattress to kiss my mother’s cheek. Paris had shrugged off her blankets again and flopped onto her back like a sunbather, arms straight along her sides. I stooped to pull the baby’s blankets up again before heading for the door.
“Jordan?” Mom called softly.
I stopped and turned, waiting for what I expected my mother to say, as she had every day of my childhood: Be careful.
But Mom didn’t say any such thing. “Have fun,” she said, then added, “Mind if I take you up on that offer and crawl into your bed for a few hours? My back’s killing me.”
David was home. I could hear a jazz saxophone blaring against background piano even from the bottom of David’s hill. I wound my way through the hibiscus-scented dark to the top of the street, my arms swinging in time to the music.
Every other house and apartment was dark at this hour, but lights blazed in David’s windows. Was he having a party? So much the better. I could casually slip inside, say I was just passing by. Oh, and by the way, looks like I’m going to Nepal. Got any tourist tips on temples and yaks?
The blinds were drawn. There could be two people inside his house or twenty. I hesitated on the front step, wondering how to make my entrance. I didn’t have long to ponder my approach: his dog started yapping, its shadow leaping and twirling behind the window shade like a marionette dancing the Tarantella. So much for the subtle approach.
I rang the bell. The dog grabbed the bottom of the door blind in its teeth. The blind snapped and rolled up, the dog dangling from its edge as David crossed the living room to open the door.
David looked at me a moment too long. The dog released the shade and shot out the door like a cobra to grip my jeans between its jaws. “Just thought I’d drop by and see what you’ve been up to,” I said, giving my foot a little shake. The dog hung tight. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” David mumbled, then bent down to detach the dog. “Hang on. I’ll just stick Jack in his crate.”
I hovered on the porch like a Jehovah’s Witness. From the sounds of Jack’s shrill yapping and David’s ineffectual shushing noises, he was clearly a better pediatrician than dog handler. At last a door closed somewhere in the far reaches of the house. The dog was still barking, but at least now the sound was muffled.
“What are you doing, walking the streets alone at this hour?” David demanded when he returned. “Or did you get your car back?”
“About that day you stopped by to give me a ride…” I began, but David held up a hand to stop me.
“Wait. Didn’t mean to be rude. Sorry. Come in, come in. Hold on while I turn down the music.” He left me again.
I hovered in the living room, craning my neck for clues to David’s existence. If he did have a woman here, she was hiding. This was bachelor heaven. The furniture cushions were brown corduroy, the gold plaid curtains looked as though they’d been inherited from someone’s basement. and an iguana lurked in an aquarium.
“I haven’t done much housecleaning in the past few days,” David apologized, following my glance as he returned a few minutes later. “It’s good to see you, Jordan.”
“Really? Even though I had to hunt you down? You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“Busy,” David said. “You? How are things?”
He was wearing baggy red cotton pajama pants dotted with penguins and a black t-shirt. He was barefoot. I couldn’t decide if he looked ridiculous or sexy as I sank onto the couch.
“Things are good,” I said. “Mostly.” I tried to breathe deeply and relax against the couch, only to spring forward again as something hard and thorny squeaked beneath me.
“Sorry!” David said. He fished a plastic cactus chew toy out of the cushion, shying away from any actual contact with my hip.
“That’s some watchdog you’ve got.”
“Yeah, Jack has even bitten me,” he admitted. “I rescued him from an abandoned house near the clinic and can’t give him to a shelter because he’s so nasty.”
“So he wasn’t having a particularly bad reaction to me?”
“No, no,” David promised. “In fact, I think Jack took a real shine to you. He went after your jeans without taking a piece of your ankle.”
I sat back against the couch again. My face felt hot. I took a deep breath and said, “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I came to explain what happened the other day when you saw me with Ed.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he said hastily. “I should have called before coming by your place.”
We weren’t getting anywhere this way. David’s eyes were dark with apprehension. Even his curls looked anxious, bobbing about in tight ringlets above his gl
asses.
I forced myself to continue. “You saw me kissing Ed, but there’s nothing between us. Ed and I are just friends. He’s dating Karin now.”
“Ed was dating Karin before,” David said. “Ed’s always dating Karin. Whenever he’s not dating the rest of San Francisco, that is.”
His glum tone stopped me. Was David also secretly harboring feelings for Karin? God, that would be just my luck.
On the other hand, Karin had made it clear that David was just a passing idea for her. I moved a little closer to David, resting my hand on one of his knees as I leaned over to kiss him. It was a long kiss, cool at the start and then so hot my mouth felt as if it were burning.
The dog continued to issue muffled distress calls from the back of the house. We kept kissing until I didn’t know when one kiss started and the other ended.
I moved on top of David and tugged both of our t-shirts up so that I could rub my breasts on his chest. He was hard beneath me and breathing fast. I removed his glasses, which by now hung crookedly over one earpiece.
Suddenly, David wriggled out from under me and moved over on the couch. He retrieved his glasses and settled them above his nose. “I can’t do this,” he said. “I’m sorry, Jordan.”
Mortified, I glanced down to where his body had been just seconds before. The cushions were warm and I was still resting on my arms, my t-shirt hiked up over my bare breasts, which now bobbed in the air like floats at the Macy’s Day Parade.
I yanked my shirt down and sat up on the couch again, so far away from David that the wooden sofa arm bit into my hip. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Don’t know what got into me.”
“Don’t apologize!” David begged. “Look, I lied. I do want an explanation.” He swallowed hard. “I want to know whether you slept with Ed.”
“Why?” The word was out before I had time to think. Damn. I took a deep breath. “Never mind why. Of course you want to know. I was with Ed. Just one time. We didn’t do anything, not really. I didn’t even spend the night. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t know how. I was afraid you’d think what you’re thinking now, which is that I want to be with him instead of you, or that I’m the kind of woman who hooks up for the fun of it.”
David stood up and paced the room, played a few agitated chords on the piano, then came back and stood in front of me with his arms crossed. “How did you find time? Just tell me that much! You and I were apart for what, a total of six hours?”
It dawned on me then. “Oh, no! I didn’t go with Ed after sleeping with you! Not that same day you saw us! Only before I was ever with you, and only one time! And we didn’t have sex.” I didn’t know how much more clearly I could spell things out for him.
“Before?” David rubbed his chin, then plopped down beside me on the couch again. “Okay, yeah. Yeah, that’s better.” He leaned his head back against the couch. “How long before?”
“What difference does that make?” I demanded, feeling suddenly tearful, unduly accused. I rested my face in my hands, thinking hard. Did he need every detail? Maybe he did. I would, in his shoes.
“The point is,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “I only tried sleeping with Ed before there was anything between you and me. Ed is with Karin now, and I’m glad. I want to be with you.”
There. Now the guy had a road map, a shortcut straight to my heart. What more could I give him?
David had closed his eyes. I poked his arm. “Hey! Wake up!”
“I’m awake,” he said softly, his eyes still squeezed shut. David’s long, dark lashes were the sort princesses have in storybooks. “Just in a state of emotional paralysis.”
After a few more minutes, I stood up and left him. I needed to get my wits back. I wandered down the hall to the bathroom. It was as minimalist as the rest of the house: one blue towel, a shred of soap, a mirror the size of a saucer.
I glared at my reflection. I had the rosy cheeks and red nose of a boozer and my hair was matted on one side. Jesus. What a mess. Between taking care of Paris, searching for Cam, and making plans to fly to Kathmandu, I was wrung out. I started to cry and turned the shower on full blast to hide the noise, sinking down onto the floor with my head in my arms.
The bathroom door opened and David poked his head in, squinting through the steam. “Can I come in?”
“It’s your bathroom.” I spun out a length of toilet paper and blew my nose. The evening was getting more romantic by the second.
David closed the door behind him. “Want the water off or on?” He gestured at the shower.
“Off. Sorry. Didn’t mean to waste it.”
“That’s all right. It’s nice and warm in here now.”
David turned off the water, sat down on the floor beside me, and handed me the blue towel. “I think we’ve got sort of a Russian Baths thing going. Steam the air, cleanse the pores, make big decisions.”
“Look, I might as well sweat out the rest of my confession right here.” I took a deep breath. “I went home with Ed after Karin’s party for lots of reasons that had nothing to do with wanting to be with Ed, but I’m not sorry. I was trying to leave my old life behind, and I needed a dramatic finale to how I was living before. Does that make sense? Or does that screw things up between us?”
David’s glasses had fogged in the steam. He took them off and wiped the lenses fruitlessly on the hem of his t-shirt. “Here’s the thing, Jordan. I appreciate how honest you are. I really do. But I was into you. I mean, like really into you. And now, after seeing you kiss Ed and knowing you were with him, I don’t think I can be with you. Not until there’s a certain level of trust between us. I was born a century too late. When I make love with a woman, I’m usually in love with her. I have a low tolerance for loss. I don’t know why. Maybe my dad’s death makes it impossible for me to trust that someone will stick around.”
David was in love with me? Was that what he meant?
I joyfully crab-walked out from under the sink and sat against the wall across from him. He was in love with me! “What happened to your dad?”
A rock climbing accident, David explained. “I was fourteen then. A long time ago. Long enough so I don’t think about him every day.” David flashed a grin. “Except when I’m climbing mountains, of course.”
“Your mother must have a fit every time you do it!”
“Her worries are over now that my knees have given out. But I hate not being able to climb. I’ve lost the only connection I ever had with my father.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” I put my hands on his knees. “I wish I could heal you. Still, I’m glad you’re not climbing. I wouldn’t be able to follow you.”
“Sure you could. I’d teach you.” David patted my hand. “Come on. Can we give the couch another try?”
I followed him into the living room, where I let him sit on the couch first. “Where do you want me?” I asked, hesitating.
“Right here.” David patted his lap.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I just want to hold you. Is that all right?”
“More than all right.” Already, I was listing towards him, as if a web had been spun from my belly to his. I sank onto David’s knees and rested my head on his shoulder. We sat that way, talking more about his father, his music, my mother, Paris, and Cam. Finally, I told him about Nepal. “Do you think I should go?”
“Of course. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you didn’t make one last try to sort this thing out with your brother.”
David always made things sound so simple. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m confused about my own motives. Part of me wants things to stay just as they are, so that I can have Paris without really taking on the full responsibility of motherhood.”
“But you’re too responsible,” David suggested.
“I don’t feel very responsible right this minute.” I pressed my lips lightly against his neck. David’s curls were damp from the steamy bathroom and he’d taken off his glasses. He trembled sl
ightly. “Want to give me some Kathmandu travel tips?” I asked, putting my lips close to his ear.
“Here’s one.” David’s arms tightened around me. “Come back in one piece.”
“That’s my travel tip?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be waiting for me?” I pressed my face to David’s neck, unable to resist his smell, his skin. I traced the length of his throat with the tip of my tongue. David tasted of salt and lime.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think I can promise that. I need more time with you before I can let my guard down. And that seems kind of pointless in a way, doesn’t it? Since you’re going back to the East Coast? I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said miserably. “I understand.”
And I did, since I couldn’t make promises, either. What would I do if Cam granted me guardianship of his daughter? Where would I live? How would I work? I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. So how could I possibly promise to be reliable as a lover?
David ran a hand through my hair. “God, Jordan,” he whispered. “The things you do to me! And you’ve got such a wild mane of hair. I love your hair. Sometimes it looks like your hair is on fire.” He traced my lips with one finger. “Will you sleep with me?”
I sat bolt upright. “Sleep with you? I thought you just said…”
“I mean just sleep.”
“I’m not sure I’m capable of that.”
“Of course you are. And so am I. Would you stay with me until I go to work?”
I thought about my mother and her breakfast with Louise. “I have to be home by eight.”
David glanced at his watch. “Four whole hours,” he said. “An hour more than last time. Will you?”
I laughed. “There’s no place else I’d rather be,” I said, thinking how rarely in my life I’d ever been able to say that.
Chapter twelve
Three days later, I flew from San Francisco to Hong Kong, and then on to Kathmandu, where the plane seemed to hover over the Himalayas.
David had told me that each mountain had its own personality, and he was right. Some peaks rose gracefully above the clouds, their folds as delicate as white skirts. Others gleamed like pink church spires, a few stern black cones standing between them like castle turrets. Glacial lakes gleamed sapphire against the darker wrinkles of the terminal moraines.
Sleeping Tigers Page 19