by Jill Jaynes
Their gazes met. His eyes darkened.
“Your hair. It’s like a storm cloud. No, you look more like an old Eastern Orthodox icon with a dark, tarnished-silver halo.” He leaned toward her, caressed her face. “Your skin is so smooth and perfect it could be enameled. You are… sumptuous.”
She felt weightless, fearless, full of joy. She felt as if she were glowing. She raised her face, drawn to him like a sunflower toward the sun and wrapped her hands around his neck. Bristles of cut hair teased her palms. She stood on tiptoes with her lips close, teasing him, inviting him, basking in his warmth.
He stroked her face. “Like velvet,” he murmured. He wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her tightly toward himself.
She shivered and ran her hands up into the wind-tousled waves and curls of his short hair. Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me! Her fingers tightened and tugged his head, but he resisted, teasing her by blowing softly on her lips and nose. Her knees wobbled; her legs turned to gelatin.
His hand ran slowly down from her waist over the jut of her hipbone and the broad curve of her hip and stayed there. Then, at last, when she was afraid she would melt into a puddle, he pressed his lips against hers.
His lips. They were hungry and eager and swollen and sparked fire in her lips and then over the rest of her skin.
She drew one finger down his neck and across his jaw. As he shuddered against her breasts and she gasped in response, she explored his face. The bristly stubble on the cheek that had been baby-bottom smooth that morning. The smooth angle of his cheekbone. The perfection of his nose, straight and just the right size and proportions for his face.
He pulled his face back, his breath ragged. “I’m always happy when I’m with you. I never feel you’re judging me or my work and finding me lacking.”
She stroked his face, feeling her heart stabbed again by his pain of never being good enough for his parents. “Sha.” She drew out the endearment. “Darlin’. You are a great artist and, I reckon, a man worthy of the art he makes.”
“No woman has ever made me feel this way,” he murmured before he devoured her lips as he had her cornbread.
It felt so good, she stopped kissing back and instead twined her arms tightly around his waist, savoring each sensation his kisses produced.
A car drove by outside, crunching a can and kicking up gravel.
The studio was silent, the blues CD over. Leonie half-opened her eyes. It seemed they had kissed for only moments. But in those moments, the sunlight had disappeared; the studio windows reflected wavering images of the two of them and the sparkling pieces on the table.
Thoughts of hungry cats and getting the shop ready for Monday shattered her single-minded focus on David’s body. Leonie pulled away and backed up until she bumped into something hard. A desk.
They stared at each other, eyes wide, breath loud.
David picked up the nearest brooch and polished the silver edges and back.
Leonie perched on the edge of the desk. She had known a lot of artists and seen a lot of artists’ relationships fail. There were questions she needed to ask David before their connection got stronger. “David?” She licked her lips. “Was your art the reason your marriage broke up?”
He reeled back as if she had punched him in the gut. The brooch fell from his hands and landed on the cement floor with a loud crack. David didn’t even look at it. His eyes focused behind her.
She swallowed the lump in his throat and walked over to him. She put her hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s too early to be any of my business.”
David took a step back, breaking her touch. “It’s better you know before things between us get more… serious.” He pulled at the neck of his t-shirt as if it had gotten too tight. “Many artists pour their entire souls into their work and save nothing for their families. Paul Gauguin, for example. Georgia O’Keefe.”
“Gauguin and O’Keefe both spent long times away from their spouses. Is that what you did?”
“No! Never.” He swallowed and looked toward the icebox. “I was happy to settle down, be married, have a baby. I did my share of the chores. I always remembered Jessica’s birthday and our anniversary. We went a lot of places together.”
A baby! Another surprise. “So what happened?”
“I’m not sure. Before we got married, I made sure Jess knew I would have a day job and do art during what was ‘free time’ for other people. I thought she understood.”
“You were wrong?”
He nodded. “She wanted all of me, all the time—every evening, every Saturday, every Sunday. I suggested she and the baby come with me to the studio. She could read a book or do some embroidery, and we’d all be together. She refused. She only wanted to do things that kept me from my art.”
“Didn’t she know anyone else here?”
“She had many friends in Moonlight Cove, and she Skyped with her family several times a week.” He swallowed. “She wasn’t lonely. Just jealous. Jess saw the part of myself I gave to art as something taken from her.”
“She wasn’t interested in going with you to take photographs? Helping you choose the ones to make into new pieces? Giving you feedback and encouragement?”
“Not at all.” He rubbed his chin. “Before we married, she was always going to this club or that meeting or was out with her friends. I had no clue she thought the bonds of marriage should be made of superglue.”
“Myself, I would expect to spend some fun time with my husband. Just saying.”
“We did do fun things. I loved Jessica, I loved the baby, and I treated them the opposite of how I was treated. It ripped me apart when they left.” He bent and picked up the dropped brooch. After examining it and dusting it off, he set it on the table. “What about you, Leonie? You talk about going back to Louisiana. I don’t want to develop… feelings and then have you leave. I don’t want to be ripped apart again.”
“I’m not independent, and I don’t want to be.” She hugged herself. “I need to be part of a family. My decision depends on how things work out with Jake.” She exhaled a long breath. “If I have to be alone, Moonlight Cove is not where I’d choose to be.” The room was suddenly stifling, and the abundance of sparkling items felt oppressive. She collected her notebook and backpack and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
David didn’t try to convince her to stay, and her heart warmed with gratitude. His keys clinked when he pulled them from his pocket. “I’ll walk you home. Don’t want any TV producers stealing you away to star in Bikini Babes.”
As if. She played along, patting the knife stuck in the webbing of her boots and then pulling up her sleeve to reveal large, round scars on her arm. “No need to come with me. If I can fend off an alligator, I can fend off a producer.”
For a moment, he was speechless. “I insist. It wouldn’t be polite to let you walk alone when you spent all day helping me.”
She placed her palm against his chest, over his heart, her eyes soft. “Sha, I have a lot of thinking to do. You’d be a distraction.” She stretched up to kiss him quickly and went out the door.
She walked slowly, thoughts tumbling through her head and bumping into each other. So involved was she in her thoughts it took her two blocks to hear stealthy steps behind her. I should have known he wouldn’t let me walk home alone. He gave in too easily. Should I stop and wait for him to catch up? No. I need to think without him around. Should I leave? Should I stay and get involved with him when he’s an artist?
She sped up. No need for him to spend more time shadowing her than necessary. Besides, someone might see him tailing her and call the police.
She also pulled her knife. This wasn’t tiny Bayou Cane, where everybody knew everybody and watched out for each other. What if a robber, not David, followed her?She should be prepared to teach him the same lesson she had taught the alligator.
But the footsteps stayed the same distance behind her. Her chest felt a little gooey that David wanted to prot
ect her. When she reached the shop, she turned and located a jiggling bush. She waved and blew a kiss.
Sheepishly, David stepped out from behind the bush and waved back. Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and trotted away.
She shut the door, locked it, and leaned against it, looking around the shop. Little paws padded on the floor as the cats ran toward her. She scooped up Slink and rested her chin on his head. She had an extra complication to consider. Am I stepping into an ethical quagmire by mixing business and pleasure?
Chapter 12
The next evening, Leonie stood in the showroom, hands on her hips. The cold evening breeze raised frissons on her arms. Did California ever have nice weather? Still, she left the windows open despite the odor of the ocean and the cold air. She and David would heat up once they started climbing ladders and pounding nails. And, she had to admit, the sound of ocean waves had grown on her; it was different from the soft lapping of the water against plant stems and the banks of the bayou, but just as calming.
Now she needed to choose the best places for the mirrors before David arrived. Although she had hung her father’s framed calligraphy pieces only a few days earlier, she was already immune to their presence. She couldn’t decide whether adding mirrors would make the room look crowded.
I should err on the side of caution and replace four calligraphy pieces with the four mirrors. She took down four frames and took them to the back living quarters. Then she checked the supplies on the card table set up in the middle of the room. She had forgotten to look at the back of David’s mirrors to see how he had prepared them for hanging, but she had equipment for however they needed to be hung.
Puff rubbed against the gleaming new aluminum telescoping ladder, a jarring note in an otherwise harmonious room of woodwork with softened edges and plaster whose peaked brush strokes had mellowed into molehills. Leonie crouched down and dug her fingers in the plush white fur of the cat’s scruff, as much to keep her from knocking over the ladder as to enjoy her softness.
She looked at the mantel clock. 8:30.
“Where do you think he is, Puff?”
Puff butted her forehead. Slink yawned. Leonie bowed her head, letting her forehead rest against the summery warmth of their bodies. “If only Jake and David were as simple to understand as you two.”
A tickle ran up her back. David’s here. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she was right: Seconds later, he rapped.
Slink wriggled free and ran, low to the ground, behind the counter.
All Leonie’s plans for calm, businesslike efficiency vanished. Beaming uncontrollably, she pulled open the door so hard that the chimes jolted off their hook and clanged to the floor.
David seemed nervous too. He closed his eyes briefly, and his Adam’s apple bobbed several times above his t-shirt, this one showing a Vincent Van Gogh painting of sunflowers in a vase.
“Come in, come in!” Leonie didn’t kiss him or even touch him. Her mouth was too dry and her palms too damp.
David pulled in a handcart loaded with several boxes, which he unloaded onto the card table.
“I thought we’d put the mirrors up first.” She pointed out the four spots she had cleared. They unwrapped the mirrors. As they hung them up, Puff jumped and twirled and pounced on the kraft paper, and they laughed together at her antics, breaking the nervous tension between them.
Two mirrors worked in the places Leonie had picked out, but they both agreed the other two spots did not do the mirrors justice.
“What about moving that dusty frame somewhere else? It’s in a prominent spot, but doesn’t match anything.” David walked behind the counter and lifted a frame off the wall. He brushed ancient dust from the glass with the corner of his t-shirt. Slink sneezed.
“What’s in there?” Leonie held a mirror up between the two new display cabinets. No, this doesn’t look good either.
“A newspaper story about the store’s opening.”
“That was a long time ago.” She tried the mirror up in another place. “What do you think of this spot?”
He didn’t answer.
She turned.
He cleared his throat and looked at Puff. “Leonie, you should see this.”
The strain in his voice made her scurry over like one of the cats. “Are you okay, sha?”
David held out the frame, back side up. A photograph was wedged in the corner. When she took the frame from him, a musty smell rose from the photo.
As Leonie fumbled for the switch for the lights over the counter, her stomach tied itself into a knot. She placed the frame on the display counter’s top, and they stood shoulder to shoulder.
The old picture’s colors had faded and changed hues. In it, a Japanese-American man in a rumpled, dirty Navy uniform slouched on a plaid sofa. He was drunk, skunk drunk, given his glazed eyes and the amount of his drawers showing above his pants. A cigarette dangled from his lips, and ash littered his pants. He had his arm around a beautiful black or Creole woman. She held a dark-skinned baby.
Leonie’s hand flew to her throat. “No, that not be Jake!”
“The man looks a lot like him.” David cleared his throat and turned the picture over. “Look at the writing on the back. ‘Jake, Naomi, and T-Jake, Gulfport, Miss.’”
She flipped it back to the front and stared at the man’s face in the photo, unable to talk. Could it really be her father?
“T-Jake. That’s a pretty strange name,” David said.
“It means Little Jake or Jake Junior,” Leonie answered mechanically. “‘T’ is short for petit, which means ‘little.’” She tore her gaze away from the man’s face and turned the picture over again to read the inscription for herself. When she reached the date, she gasped.
Stomach roiling, face hot, she raced into the back into the closest bathroom and vomited. Up came everything she had eaten for supper. And for dinner. And maybe what she ate for breakfast too.
Afterward, her face was as red and sweaty as if she had run for miles. She turned on the cold-water tap and splashed her face and rinsed her mouth until the sour taste went away. She pressed her forehead against the coolness of the mirror.
“Leonie?” David called back. “Do you need help?”
“I’ll be right out.” Hands trembling, she pulled the hand towel from its hook and dried her face slowly, one portion at a time. She stared at her reflection, sighed, and went to face David.
“You’re really pale. Are you sure you’re all right?” He reached out and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
She tapped a finger on the faded blue date he hadn’t read aloud. “This is two months after I was born. If this is Jake, then he was cheating on Mama.”
David became rigid as a post. “But… I know him. We’ve talked about more than art. We’ve talked about you, the time he spent in Japan, all sorts of things.”
She pulled away from his embrace. “Did you talk about when he was in the Navy?”
“No, he never mentioned it.” David ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to think.”
“We have to think he has many secrets he doesn’t want us to know.”
He hesitated before answering. “I guess.”
“We wondered about his nickname, remember? ‘Jake’ certainly suits the man in the picture.” She took a deep breath. “The more I look at the photo, the more I see Jake in his features. It has to be him.”
“He didn’t trust you, his daughter. He didn’t trust me, his friend.” David’s brow crinkled. Softly, he said, “He was more than a friend. He was the kind, encouraging father I never had.” He shook his head like a horse trying to shake off flies. “But it was a lie.”
Leonie’s eyes warmed with tears. “He lied to my mother. He lied to you. He deserted me when I needed him more than anyone else did.” The tears spilled out and ran down her face.
“You were better off without a father like that!” David turned the photo over to the front again. “Look at him! A drunk, a two-timer, a man who can’t
even be bothered to keep his uniform clean. He would have hurt you.”
Mon Dieu! David, he has so much anger in him. On my behalf? On his own behalf?
Maybe I too will be angry, but right now I just feel betrayed. Betrayed and confused and lost. Her tears continued. She twirled a strand of hair around and around her finger. “Sha, I still wish he’d stayed with Mama. Any father is better than no father.”
“No.” He shook his head hard. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d grown up in my family.” He spit out the words. “I would have been better off an orphan. I’m glad Jake abandoned you so your life turned out better than mine.”
Her head snapped up, and their gazes locked. She wrapped her arms around him, and he pulled her tight. The muscles of his back were in knots, and her touch didn’t loosen them. They clung to each other like children, swaying as if dancing. For true, her head reeled, and his probably did too.
“I’m sorry for your childhood,” she said. “I can’t know what it was like to grow up in California. But down the bayou, family is important, maybe the most important thing in life. Jake should have been there for me. Clearly he lacked some fatherly traits. But that, that was no excuse.”
She reached for the photo and ran her finger over the names on the back again. They were slightly indented. “Jake wrote these words a ballpoint pen.” Not a fountain pen, but a ballpoint. Her shoulders felt heavy, and she felt her backpack on her back even though she knew it wasn’t there. “The worst part is, now I don’t know whether anything he told Mama was true! Was their marriage legal? Why did he really invite me out here? Why did he leave me so soon?”
David at last relaxed into her embrace. Puff’s claws clicked as she landed on the counter and strolled to join them, casually as if she did not pick up on their moods—or, catlike, assumed her presence would fix everything.
Leonie stroked Puff. After a moment, David turned and petted the cat too.
When at last David spoke, it was with carefulness and certainty. “Your father may not have stayed around because he knew he couldn’t be a good father. He knew you’d be better off without him as he was back then. His current behavior could be an act, but I can’t believe that. I refuse to believe that. It would hurt too much.”