It still had more of the sheen of I-just-graduated-from-college-and-bought-everything-at-IKEA-and-Target than she would have liked, but she figured all things in time. Despite being far from luxurious, the miniscule one bedroom was definitely her: the red couch she’d gotten on sale at the Crate and Barrel outlet, the glass coffee table she’d bought for five dollars from a former co-worker who was moving to Japan, now stacked with the latest Vanity Fair and a handful of the more respectable celebrity gossip magazines. A vanilla-scented candle in a glass jar bearing a big bold black “N” cast a small, dancing shadow across the table. Her maple-and-wrought-iron DIY bookcases held the requisite literary tomes along with silly tchotchkes from her work travels: a tiny replica of the CN Tower in Toronto, a miniature beer mug from Boston, a golf-ball-sized 42nd Street snow globe from New York City among them (and what would he think of her collection of pop CD’s from the 90s and early 2000’s also lining the shelves, bursting with the dulcet tones of Britney Spears, 98 Degrees and Kelly Clarkson?). Scattered around the entire apartment were framed photos of girls’ nights out and other outings with Brandy and Christine. Pictures with Dina Preston, her roommate from Brown, the fast-talking, foul-mouthed rail-thin New Yorker with long black hair that fanned out like fringe on a shawl whenever she whipped her head around, which was often, were prominent on the wall and lone side table. Natalie made a mental note to call Dina that weekend.
She pulled two wineglasses from the cabinet and quickly washed them before drying them with the last paper towel on the roll. Her phone rang and she squeaked before running to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Yes, Miss Scott, Jason is here,” the doorman droned from downstairs.
“Okay, let him up, thanks,” she said as she went to chew on her nail before remembering her manicure from earlier that day. She paced a little to try and calm herself, jumping at the soft knock at the door. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths before opening it.
He smiled. “Scotty,” he said, going to high-five her.
“Scotty?” she laughed as their hands met. “When’d you come up with that?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I was just thinking about you and I was like, ‘Scotty.’”
She let him pull her into his sinewy body, warm with summer’s humidity. “You’re the only person I would let get away with that.”
“You better,” he said, kissing her. He pulled back and handed her the DVD. “I don’t know if I’ve sufficiently prepared you for the power of Ferris. I mean, this is the movie about Chicago. Truly. You sure you ready for this?”
“I think I can handle it,” she said as she dropped the DVD on the kitchen table.
“Next time, we’re gonna watch Rocky, which I don’t think I told you is my all-time, number-one favorite movie, ever. Ever.”
“Rocky?” she wrinkled her nose. “The boxing movie?”
“Oh, man. A ‘boxing movie,’ she says. It is so much more than a boxing movie.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “That so?”
“I mean, yeah, there’s boxing in it, but it’s about . . . going the distance and persevering and having heart and believing in yourself—”
“All that?”
“And a love story. Rocky and Adrian. Two people who never thought they’d find love finding it with each other . . . making it through because of that love for each other. I’m telling you, Scotty, you might cry.”
“Guess I know what we’re doing next Friday night.”
“For sure,” he winked.
“So, the Chinese should be here in a few minutes.”
He nodded as he started to wander around the tiny living room while she poured them glasses of white wine. “Cool. So, this is Scotty Central, huh?”
“This is it,” she said, handing him a glass of wine. “I can give you the ten-dollar tour.”
They both laughed as he took the wineglass from her. She gave a cursory swipe of her hand across the living room and the balcony before showing him the bathroom and bedroom. He nodded his approval as he took in the surroundings.
“This is nice. It’s you.”
“You’re not going to freak out being so high up, are you?”
“You’ll just have to save me if I do.”
“Let me go put on my cape,” she said.
“You know, I have always had a thing for Wonder Woman.”
“She doesn’t have a cape,” Natalie giggled.
“All right, I’ll let you lasso me up then,” he said as he sat down on the couch. “How long you been here?”
She joined him and took a sip of her wine. “A little over two years. I was in Wrigleyville before, but I always wanted to live in a high-rise. Makes me feel safer.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Well, you never hear about people who live in high-rises being slaughtered in a home invasion.”
“Hard to argue with that one,” he said.
• • •
“All right . . . you never told me what your favorite movie is.”
Natalie swirled the little sip of wine in her glass for a moment. “Well, I like a lot of foreign films. I—I got into them in college . . . like . . . oh, there’s this French one called Red Lights that I really like. Diabolique is another, and . . . or maybe it’s just that I like French films. . .”
“Yeah, man, what you got against American movies?” he said, winking.
“Well, I . . . let’s just say growing up, I saw plenty of ‘American’ movies, but they weren’t movies I really wanted to see.”
“Huh?”
“My aunt always made my cousins take me to the movies with them whenever they went, so all the ones I saw were ones they saw, and they were always just . . . bad.”
“Give me an example,” he said.
“God. I mean, they loved any kind of monster or slasher movie. And action movies. Lots of action movies. Brandy and Christine always roll their eyes whenever they mention some, like, chick flick or comedy from back in the day and I have no idea what they’re talking about.” She gulped the last of her wine. “We have lots of movie nights.”
They’d finished watching the movie, and as Jason had predicted, she fell under Ferris’ spell. The perfume of moo shu pork, beef with broccoli, and eggrolls wafted around them, and a few grains of sticky, white rice had dribbled onto the coffee table. Now, they were talking, the TV humming Simpsons reruns in the background.
He took a deep breath as he picked up the rice and dropped the grains into the empty eggroll container before quickly wiping down the coffee table with a stray napkin, staring at her with a strange little smile. “You know, besides telling me you’re from a little town in Arkansas and that you’re basically an orphan, you haven’t really told me much about your past.”
She snorted. “Because it’s depressing. Like really depressing.”
Jason cradled his chin in one palm. “Tell me about it.”
She gripped her glass for a moment, wondering how much to say, how much to keep to herself. Her eternal struggle.
“Well,” she sighed, deciding to reveal most, not all, of her tragic origins. “After my parents were killed and my grandparents couldn’t take care of me anymore, I had to go live with my father’s older brother, Zach, his wife, Cheryl, and their twenty kids.”
“Twenty?”
“Well, okay, not twenty, but between the two of them there were eight kids. Then me. Since they had so many, they definitely didn’t want to take me in. Another mouth to feed, you know, that whole thing.”
“But they did,” he said. “Take you in, I mean.”
“Yeah. I was ten. Really, the only reason they even took me in was because of this trust from the Cowboys and trucking company I was supposed to get when I turned eighteen. Well, they got that overturned and went through those almost-seven figures in, I’m not kidding you, six months. And from that first day, they made it clear that I had to ‘earn my keep.’ I had to do most and eventually all of the coo
king and cleaning. I shared a room with my three cousins and had to wear their old clothes, and any little money I made from babysitting or whatever little job I was able to scrape together, I had to give to them.”
“Seriously?”
“Uh huh. Despite all that, having to deal with Zach and Cheryl was by far the worst. They were drunks. Like the worst kind of drunks. I mean, they weren’t about drinking themselves quietly into a corner. They drank to fight—with each other, with all of us. Mostly me. . .”
“Damn.”
“Cheryl liked to slap me. A lot. She gave me a black eye when I was twelve but kept me out of school so no one would ask me about it. That’s when the slapping started. Didn’t leave any marks. Zach—he just liked to menace—yell and scream, spit on you, throw things at you.”
“And nobody did anything?” he asked, frowning. “No neighbors, anybody?”
“You have to understand. This was a small town,” Natalie said as she shifted in her seat to face him. “People don’t like getting into each other’s business. Now, they’ll gossip about your business all day long, but they don’t want to actually step in and do anything. You still have to see these people at the post office and the Piggly Wiggly. It’s not like a big city where you can be more . . . anonymous.”
“I guess, but still. . .”
“Once I lived alone, it took me so long to get used to silence. I’d started to think that the sound of broken bottles and somebody screaming curse words at all hours of the day and night were normal.” Natalie snorted as she poured the last few gulps of wine into her glass. “Even though I knew it wasn’t.”
Jason frowned and leaned back against the couch cushions. “When’s the last time you talked to them?”
“Last summer. Cheryl, I guess, Googled me and called to let me know Zach had died. Drove his car into a tree, big surprise. She thought I should have to pay for his funeral. I hung up on her.”
“Wow. Sounds like your aunt has some balls.”
“Yeah, well, that’s Cheryl. Anyway, when I left for college, I never looked back. As far as I’m concerned, Brandy, Christine, and Dina are my family.”
“Dina. That’s your college roommate,” Jason said.
“Yes, from when I was at Brown. Even after I left, we stayed close.”
“So, how does a girl from small town Arkansas wind up in Rhode Island of all places?”
“I always knew I wasn’t going to stay in Braxton. I just . . . I never fit in, you know? I didn’t care about Friday night football games or hanging out in the Dairy Queen parking lot or drinking grain alcohol in a field, or any of that stuff. I . . . it’s funny. We only had one TV in the house, and, of course, I didn’t have any say over it, but there was this one show my cousins really liked that I would sneak in and watch—Melrose Place—”
“Aw, man . . . I remember my sister was into that for the longest time. Oh my God, like, obsessed. Melrose Mondays. Damn. Why do I remember that?”
“That’s right,” Natalie said, giggling. “Monday nights, Melrose Place. Anyway. There was this character, Amanda, and she was just . . . insane. I mean, she was a total beyotch, you know, really mean to everybody, but . . . she wore these amazing clothes—you know, really beautiful suits and high heels, and her hair was perfect and her makeup was perfect. And she worked in this advertising agency, and she was always talking about ‘clients’ and ‘copy’ and ‘campaigns.’ I had no idea what any of it meant, but . . . I knew that’s what I wanted—to live in a big city and work in an office and wear pretty clothes and live in a nice, clean, quiet home and go to dinners in fancy restaurants where I couldn’t pronounce anything on the menu and drink wine out of big round glasses and—”
“You wanted to rule the world,” Jason said.
“Well, I don’t know about all that,” Natalie said, laughing. “But uh, I definitely do plan on having executive VP of marketing and communications in front of my name one day. Anyway, I figured out the only way I was gonna be like Amanda was to go to college as far away from Braxton and that house and everything else as I could.” Natalie shrugged. “So I did. I was lucky that my counselor really encouraged me, and, well . . . there was just something about Brown. . .”
“So why’d you transfer?”
Natalie snapped out of her reverie, the rest of the story about to tumble from her lips in a tipsy torrent. No. Not yet. “That’s a story for another day.”
He sighed and took her hands in his, playing with her fingers. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Tonight’s been fun,” he said, pulling her into a kiss, his breath sweet with orange chicken and fruity moscato. They melted into each other and his hand grazed her nipple. She froze, having both welcomed and feared this moment.
He pulled back and looked at her. “You okay?”
“Yes. No. It’s just. . .”
“I’m moving too fast, huh?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s—” Natalie groaned and pushed her face into her hands. “Oh, God.”
“Come on,” he said. “Talk to me. What’s up?”
“Well, it’s just . . . I mean, I’m. . .”
He took a deep breath and searched her face. “Is this . . . is this your first time?”
“What?”
“I mean, hey, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Really.”
“No, no, no. No.”
“No. . .?” he nodded and shook his head at the same time in an attempt to follow her muddled signals.
“I mean, no, I’m not a virgin, but I’m not all that . . . experienced either.”
“Okay. . .”
“Ugh. What I mean is . . . I’ve been with guys right? Just not that many. I mean, there hasn’t been anyone special. Like really special.”
He rubbed her shoulder then leaned in, trying to keep the smile off his face. “So . . . am I special?”
She swatted his thigh and rolled her eyes, giggling. “Stop.”
He laughed and kissed her neck. “Am I? Come on, tell me,” he said, continuing to dot kisses across her neck.
“No, really, stop.”
He obeyed, his hands in the surrender position. “Okay. I’ll stop. But you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. Seriously.”
“You think so?”
“Would you rather be telling me about the fifty guys you’ve slept with?” he asked.
“Well, I would never sleep with fifty guys.”
“I didn’t think you would. Look. Whether you slept with fifty guys or no guys, no judgment. Really.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Really?”
“Really,” he said, smiling. “So . . . we should make our first time special.”
“Oh, jeez. You’re not gonna . . . bust out with champagne and tacky lingerie or something corny like that one night, are you?”
He tweaked her nose. “You can bring your own tacky lingerie.”
“Gross.”
“All right, all right,” he said, laughing. “No cheesy champagne and candles. But, maybe let me woo you a little. Can I do that at least?”
“Well . . . I guess I could do that. Just don’t buy me lingerie. Like you said, I can buy my own lingerie.”
He held out his pinky to her. “No lingerie unless bought by you.”
She hooked her pinky around his. “Deal.”
“I should get going,” he said as he gave her a quick kiss.
“You don’t have to. I mean—”
He kissed her again, and Natalie wanted to throw her arms around him, beg him to stay and make love to her all night, to show her it was okay to break the glass on all these notions and hang-ups she’d been lugging around for the past ten years. To not leave her. Instead, she let him lean back and pull her off the couch. “Come on,” he said. “Walk me out.”
Natalie sighed and allowed him to tug her toward the front door, her heart heavy with the possibility she’d scared him off and now he was just being polite.
; He turned around to look at her before drawing her into a kiss. He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands. “Thank you,” he murmured.
“For what?”
“For finally opening up to me. Means you’re starting to trust me. Like I’ve been telling you to. That’s good.”
She grinned, relief flooding her insides. It wasn’t over. It was just beginning. “Thanks for being so trustworthy.”
Chapter 11
SHE
Hindsight.
When she was lying in that bed, in that room, she would think about the path that had led to her prison, how hindsight had slithered around her neck and choked her like a vise.
How she had missed all those signs. How she had been asleep at the wheel.
Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, there were so many things she would go back and change. She would have broken off with him much sooner. Not been with him at all. Not made all those promises of forever. She meant them at the time and had no way of knowing they would come back to trap her.
He barged into the room, as usual, having no compunction about invading her personal space or lurking around the edges of her privacy. His rationale was that she’d never had any secrets from him, so why would she start trying to hide things from him now?
He set her breakfast tray down on the corner of the bed, preparing for the morning ritual. Her heart lurched at the sight of food, weary at the appearance of the pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar and fat strawberries. Was it actually arsenic masquerading as powdered sugar, like that book Christine told her about, where the kids in the attic unknowingly gobbled up poisoned donuts courtesy of their wicked grandmother and evil mother?
Though she was wary about eating, her mind rampant with all sorts of extra ingredients lurking in the crevices—antifreeze, ground glass, rat poison, among other possibilities—hunger won out every time. She choked down every meal, every cup of water. And every day, she prayed this wouldn’t be the day she’d be attacked by violent spasms, or that frothy vomit wouldn’t come trickling out of the corner of her mouth, signaling her lonely, bitter end.
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