Joy gave him a small, sad smile.
“Then, if pasta doesn’t work, here’s the number one comfort food ever created: chocolate ice cream.” There was a hint of interest in Joy’s eyes, so he added, “With pieces of brownies and fudge.”
Her smile improved. He continued putting options in front of her. “There’s double caramel mocha with whipped cream. And if everything else fails . . .” He pulled a bottle out of the last bag. “There’s alcohol!”
She laughed softly. “Is it okay if I skip the food and go straight to the ice cream?”
“That’s absolutely okay.” He served the ice cream in the disposable cups he’d brought.
Licking her spoon, moaning in pleasure, Joy said, “It’s almost impossible to feel depressed when there’s something as good as chocolate on the planet.”
His love for chocolate wasn’t nearly as strong as hers, but he was happy to see her feeling better. “I agree.”
Looking down, she mumbled, “I’m sorry for losing control earlier.”
“Please don’t apologize. I wish I had a magic way to fix everything.”
Joy touched his arm. “Richard, you don’t have to fix anything. Just doing what you’re doing, and listening to me, is already helping me.”
“Then I’ll just listen.”
She sighed. Her cup was now empty, and she started eating the ice cream straight from the container. “I’m trying to keep my head above the water, but I don’t see a way out. I’m starting to lose hope.”
Richard shook his head. “I refuse to believe that. Of all the people I’ve known, you’re the one who has the strongest faith.”
She shrugged. “Faith without doubt isn’t faith, it’s knowledge. There’s no merit in that. Deep inside, I know that no tragedy has ever happened to me that didn’t bring something good later on. I know that, years from now, I’ll see the hidden blessing here, but right now I can’t. All I see is darkness.”
Richard didn’t know what to say. He muttered, “I’ve always admired your faith. I sometimes feel jealous of you for having it.”
Looking at him with tenderness, she gently stroked his face with her hand. “Richard, I’m the one who feels jealous of you. You’re my hero. I wish I had your ability to rebel against what other people expect from you. I wish I could be as unapologetic as you are and say what’s in my head with the freedom you do. That’s it: I envy your freedom.”
Richard was surprised.
“And about you not having faith,” Joy continued, “I’ve told you before I don’t believe it. But if you really don’t have any faith, then you have much more merit than I do. Because I’m living my life expecting something at the end of it, and you’re not. Your merit for living a decent and honest life is bigger than mine. And all the good things you do—your ethics, your desire for justice, your incredible kindness—must not be from a fear of ‘Divine Justice,’ but your real nature.”
He was moved. “I do believe in more things than I did before I met you. I now believe in angels—there’s one in front of me.”
He hugged her, and she cried quietly.
A few minutes later, she lifted her head from his shoulder and announced, “I’m ready for the alcohol.”
Chuckling, Richard pulled more disposable cups from the bag. The vodka he’d bought was too strong for Joy, so he mixed just a dash with guava juice for her. They remained silent for a long time, sipping from their drinks.
A while later, Joy took another sip from her drink and said, “If I have to find the hidden message in this heartbreak, it would be a realization that I’ve allowed my work to become too much in my life. I can’t believe I’m so attached to this place that if I lost it tomorrow, my life would lose much of its meaning.”
After taking a longer sip, she said, “Look at me, I have no life except my work and my kids. I haven’t taken a vacation in years. I don’t go anywhere. I should know that life’s too short to waste; and for me, there’s a big chance it can be shorter than average.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my mother. She got breast cancer at age thirty-eight, which is three years down the road for me. She then died from the disease at age forty, which is five years from now for me.”
Richard remained still. He knew he was hearing an intimate confession.
“Don’t you think I’m aware of that every day of my life? There is a fifty percent chance that my mother’s bad gene, whatever it was, is in me. They say it’s in my sister Hope. I admit I’ve been in denial, refusing to get tested. In the meantime, any day could be the day I find out I have cancer too.”
Her last sentence was something he’d never dared to say but which also haunted him. Richard felt a knot in his throat.
“In a way, I do understand.”
Taking another long sip, she groaned. “That’s why I want to beat myself up every time I realize I’m letting youth, life, slip from my hands. I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish I was more like you, able to live in the present moment, able to let my hair down and party at any time.”
Richard smiled. “You are like that. I’ve seen you. You were the soul of the Hospice House party that day.”
Joy stopped the cup midway to her lips, and her eyes rose to meet his. “Maybe I do have that potential in me, but I don’t give myself a chance to let it out.”
In one last, long sip, she finished her drink. She got up from her chair, wobbly, but then sat back, holding her head with her hands. “Richard, I think I’m having a stroke!”
He jumped to her side, worried. “What’s happening?”
“When I tried to walk, I couldn’t keep my balance. The room is moving around!”
Richard held her arm, got her back up, and made her walk a few steps. His worry dissipated, giving way to a smile. “Joy, you’re not having a stroke; you’re drunk! How many drinks did you have?”
He guided her to the recliner, and she sat on it.
“Two. I should’ve known better. I’m a lousy drinker. Oh, please, make the room stop moving!”
Richard laughed. “You’re the doctor. Tell me what to do.”
“I need Intravenous Dextrose.”
He laughed again. “No, Joy, you don’t need an IV. You need something to eat and some coffee. Come on, eat your pasta and drink your mocha.”
She took the cup he was handing her and sipped the coffee while he brought the pasta from the desk.
“Joy, this is impossible. Those drinks were mostly juice. There was hardly any vodka in them.”
“I have no tolerance for alcohol.”
Sitting next to her, he made her eat and drink as if she were a little girl. He distracted her with light conversation, hoping that the drunkenness would subside with the coffee and the food. It didn’t.
An hour later, Joy still felt too unstable to walk, let alone drive.
She looked at the clock on her desk. “It’s eight p.m. That means it’s five on the West Coast, and the last government offices in the country are now closed. The last hope that any of my politician contacts were calling me back today is gone.” She dropped herself back in the recliner and covered her eyes with her arm.
Taking her by the arm, Richard pulled her back up. “Come on, Joy. It’s time to go home.”
He wrapped her left arm behind his neck and encircled her waist with his right arm.
“Oh! You’re taking me to your home?” she asked.
Richard smiled. She was really hammered.
“I’d love to do that, Joy, but no. I’m taking you to your home.”
* * *
Joy fell asleep before the car made it out of the parking lot and slept through the ride until they arrived at her driveway. She was still drowsy as he dragged her out of the car and walked her to the door.
While he tried to find the right key to open the door with one hand, Richard used the other hand to support Joy against a wall. The moment he let go of her to turn the key, she started falling forward.
&nb
sp; He caught her just in time. As he was trying to regain his balance, she wrapped her arms around him and hid her face in his neck.
To his surprise, she smelled his neck and moaned. Her voice was sleepy as she said, “That beautiful smell. I’ve never been able to get it off my mind.”
His body tensed up.
Nuzzling his neck, she kept talking. “Ever since the first day we met, every time I’ve hugged you, your scent gets stuck on my clothes. I spend the rest of the day smelling you on me, and I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Richard’s heart raced.
Her voice soft, she said, “Those weeks you spent with me at my work were the most wonderful of my life. I’ve missed you terribly. I wanted to beat myself up for not kissing you back that day. I’m such a coward, such an idiot. Some nights I swear to myself that I’ll kiss you, at least once, before I die. But if not, I’ll settle for staying here all night, hugging you and smelling you.”
She hid her face in his neck again, and her hands stroked his back. He was covered in goose bumps.
He was dying to kiss her. But how could he do that, knowing she had no idea of what she was saying or doing? Was he the type of man who’d take advantage of a drunk woman?
He felt a kiss on his neck.
Maybe he was.
He kissed her gently at first and then with more and more passion as she responded to his lips. Wrapping her waist with one arm, he pulled her body closer. He ran his fingers through her hair until he locked her head in position to deepen the kiss. Moaning, she caressed his hair with one hand while the other traced the strong muscles of his shoulders and arms.
As her lips and tongue became more daring, his kiss turned almost violent. He felt her cool hands on the bare skin of his chest and realized she was undoing his shirt buttons. He moaned without letting go of her lips and walked her back to push her against the wall, pressing every inch of his body to every inch of hers. His mouth drowning the sound, she gasped to the feeling of his arousal against her.
Suddenly, she stopped moving and let go of his lips. With his mouth still on hers, he opened his eyes and saw her looking at him with eyes wide open. He slowly moved his face away from hers.
Taking both hands to her face, she shook her head and said, “Oh my God! This isn’t a dream!”
Before he could react, she slipped out of his arms, swiftly entered the house, and slammed the door behind her.
Breathless, he stood transfixed, staring at the closed door for a long time, his heart racing.
Chapter 25
Richard knocked at Joy’s office door and pushed it open before she could answer. She sat at her desk with the telephone at her ear. By looking in her eyes, he could tell two things: she hadn’t slept much either, and she did remember what happened the night before.
“Hope, I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
Hanging up the phone, she forced a smile. “Hello, Richard! What are you doing here?”
“You know very well what I’m doing here. You’ve been ignoring my calls.”
“Oh . . . really? I must have turned my phone off by accident . . .”
He took a step forward. “No. You’re not getting away with pretending that nothing happened this time. We need to talk about last night.”
Jumping out of her chair, Joy covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. “Please, Richard, don’t torture me. I’m so embarrassed. I’m mortified!”
Richard took another step in her direction. “Joy . . .”
She moved away from him as far as the size of the room allowed her. “Please, Richard! I remember little of what I said. Everything is a blur in my mind after the vodka you gave me.”
He walked closer to her. She was now corralled by the wall behind her. “Joy, what you said was beautiful. I can’t stop thinking about it. And about the softness of your hands, your lips . . .”
Joy walked past him to the opposite end of the room. “Please, Richard, no. That woman last night wasn’t me. I’m not the type of woman who tries to steal another woman’s man.”
Relieved to have an answer, he said, “Joy, don’t. There’s no other woman. I broke up with Hailey weeks ago.”
Gasping, Joy shook her head. “Oh, no! I hope it wasn’t because of me!”
“Don’t feel guilty. It was a matter of time.”
Joy put her right hand on her forehead, as if battling a bad headache. “It’s not only that. It’s bad enough that I provoked you when I thought you weren’t a free man; but I, myself, am not exactly a free woman.”
Richard tensed up. “What do you mean?”
She held her forehead with both of her hands. “I mean that the ring might be off my hand, but the chains are still on my heart. He—his ghost—is still following me.”
Richard felt a deep pain in his heart.
“Please, Richard, have mercy on me,” she begged. “You know the difficult moment I’m going through right now with the Hospice House. And now I’ve received a notice that they want me to go again to the police to be interrogated. The last thing I need is more stress. Please. I’m not ready for this. I’m not sure I’ll ever be.”
Without answering, Richard left the office. As he got in his car, he felt pain in his chest with every breath he took.
* * *
Richard hit and kicked the large punching bag with rage. With every forceful blow, both the bag and Carl, who was holding it behind, shook violently.
Grunting as he punched, his face twisted in rage. He was pouring sweat, but there were no signs of him slowing down.
He yelled, “She said she’s not a free woman! She said that her heart is still chained! Damn it! Damn you . . . stupid man! I wish you weren’t dead so I could kill you! I curse the day I met her!”
He gave the bag a lateral kick and went back to punching it violently. His voice was cut by his gasps for air. “And I stand . . . no chance against him . . . Now that he’s dead . . . he’s going to be the perfect man in her memory . . . God! How pathetic I am . . . My rival is a ghost . . . the ghost of the perfect man . . . How can I compete against that?”
Grunting loudly, he punched the bag so forcefully it ripped open. Sand and Styrofoam beads started leaking from it onto the impeccable hardwood floor in Carl’s gym.
Breathing hard, Richard stared at it.
When his panting started to calm down, Carl spoke. “Okay, I can see you have no trouble expressing your anger. That’s good. Are you done venting now?”
Taking off his boxing gloves, Richard walked a few steps past the treadmill and dropped himself down on the nearby couch—black leather like every other seat in the house.
“I think I am.”
A short silence fell before Carl spoke. “Good. Well, I think this is the most you’ve ever shared about your mysterious Joy. From what I gather, she’s a widow, and I also infer that something happened between you and her last night.”
Richard didn’t answer. Carl walked a few steps, moving around the now half-empty punching bag, to sit next to him on the couch and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Richard, I need to send Dr. Andrews out of the room for a minute and let Carl, your friend, be the person talking to you. There’s something important Carl needs to do, and Dr. Andrews shouldn’t see that.”
Puzzled, Richard looked at him.
Suddenly, Carl transformed into a different man, his usual poise and cool attitude gone. He stood up from the couch, held both of Richard’s arms, and shook him while yelling, “Wake up, man! I can’t believe what you said! Listen to yourself!”
Richard was startled. “What? What did I say?”
“You said, in the same minute, that ‘your rival is a ghost’ and ‘you stand no chance against him.’ For goodness’ sake, Richard, what kind of pathetically poor self-image can you have to say something like that? Do you realize you’re making no sense?”
Tapping Richard’s forehead with his finger, Carl said, “No matter how perfect that ghost could be in her mind, h
e stands no chance against you. You have something important that he doesn’t have. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Richard shook his head. Carl yelled, “You have a body!”
Confused, Richard stared at him. “What?”
“A body, man. You have one; the ghost doesn’t. You have a mouth, you have a tongue, you have hands, you have a—”
“Stop it! This is getting weird!”
Shaking his head, Carl said, “Richard, stay focused. You said she kissed you back. She can be saying whatever she wants this morning, but her body told you something different last night. You can throw your hands in the air and call it quits, or you can . . .”
Carl stopped, took a deep breath, and recovered his usual poise. “Okay, time for the spiritual master to come back.” He sat on the couch next to him. “Richard, when things don’t seem to go in your favor, don’t lose sight of your objective. Keep your attention not on what you don’t want but on what you want, your goal. Remind yourself: what do you want?”
Richard sighed. “I want her, more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman in my life.”
Andrews lifted his index finger. “No. You want a woman like her.”
As an answer to Richard’s confused look, he nodded. “Richard, we’ll never be able to use our power to influence another person to do what they don’t want to do. If you want love, ask for love in general, not for a person in particular. Keep yourself focused on what you want in a woman. If Joy is meant to be it, great; and if not, there will be someone else.”
Richard glared at Andrews. “Are you trying to drive me crazy? Why are you changing sides now? You’ve been the one encouraging me to go after her!”
Andrews lifted his right index finger. “But it’s not going to happen until you let go. You’re holding yourself because you are too attached to the outcome.”
“What?”
“For now, take my word for it. To be able to get what you want, you need to master the duality of wanting it with all your heart and being able to let go of it. Desiring it passionately yet knowing that if you don’t get it, there’s a reason for it, and everything is in perfect order.”
Beyond Physical Page 19