by Robin Hart
“What is it?” She said, looking fearful.
“Stay here and cry on my shoulder.” He said. “Let me hold you as long as you need it, just as a friend.” She started to cry again and he pulled her in against his side, tucked her there and let the wetness spread across his shirt.
After Nicole fell asleep Sean moved her from his lap to the couch, then stood so that he could situate her across the entire length of it. She looked peaceful, though her face was still puffy with semi-glistening tear tracks. He thought she looked like an angel when she slept.
He moved to sit on the floor beside her, trying to decide what to do next. He knew he should probably leave so that her aunt didn’t freak out on him in the morning. But he also knew she had major abandonment issues and he didn’t want to leave her and invalidate everything he had said the night before. He sighed, almost wishing it would wake her so that he could see if she wanted him to go or stay. Clearly she hadn’t been doing well emotionally when he’d come over, that must have been why she hugged him, why she cuddled on him, groped him, wanted him to stay. He hadn’t known she was so scared when she’d called him to say there was someone outside her house. She had seemed routine about it, as if it was something she didn’t much care about.
He looked up the stairs in the direction of the bedrooms. At the very least he should get her to bed. He slid his arms under her knees and shoulders, amazed that she was still sleeping through all of this, and lifted her up. She didn’t weigh much to him, but he was tired from the adrenaline flood and the night’s emotional intensity. He walked quickly, quietly towards the stairs, turning his body so that he could fit her between the wall and the banister. Was his stairway this narrow too? He guessed you wouldn’t really think of it usually if you weren’t carrying a woman (or any person) up one. He looked down at the bedroom door in the direction she seemed to come from when she came down the stairs, and nudged it open gently with his foot. He walked towards the bed, and took a second to admire the beautiful steel blue and navy furnishings, the glistening bedspread and cherry furniture. Romance writers must do well. Either that or she had money from somewhere else, maybe her aunt?
He knew that her books were popular though. Perhaps the person who had been outside, who she’d been feeling watched by was some sort of fan gone wrong?
He sat on the edge of the bed watching her. She lay sprawled with one arm above her head and one on her stomach, and her hair in tendrils around her like she had her hand on a static energy ball. He thought that her skin tone looked nice against the blue of the bed. He loved her skin, dark and warm, soft, exotic in her own way. He wanted to touch her. Not that he would, not now. Now he realized more than ever that that was not what she needed from him. He didn’t know if it was what she wanted, but she didn’t seem to know either. But he knew that more than anything she just needed a friend, someone to show her it wasn’t all about sex.
Well he could do that, that’d be no problem for him.
Still the problem remained that she was asleep, and it wasn’t appropriate to stay, nor to sleep on her bed, and her aunt might freak out finding him on the couch. He thought for a moment then looked out the window to see his jeep still parked outside the house. That’s right, he could sleep there. He went over to her desk to look for paper, and when he found a post-it note and pen, wrote her a note and quietly left. He walked down the stairs with a sense of satisfaction, not looking forward to going into the dojang the next day having barely slept.
Nicole woke up slowly. The rays of the sun pouring in and warming her to an uncomfortable sweatiness that was just barely discernible enough to be uncomfortable. She groaned. She felt hung over, as if she’d been drunk the night before. Or partied. Or gone on a writing binge. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, feeling her hair. She looked down to see she was fully clothed, and the night’s events slowly started filling her mind, like a puzzle where one piece at a time shows. She frowned. Oh no.
She threw herself down on the cover beside her, face burning, a sick feeling spreading from her stomach to her heart and her throat. She felt like she could throw up, if she had actually eaten the night before. Oh no.
She’d grabbed his crotch. She turned over and heard paper crumple. She pulled back and looked down to see a little pink post-it note.
“Nicole. Hope you slept well. I just put you on your bed. I’m outside in the jeep. Didn’t want to wake aunt.”
She felt the color drain out of her face. Well, felt what it probably was like to have color drain out of her face, but glad that her rich, dark skin couldn’t pallor like white people. He was outside? She looked to the window, saw the jeep outside, and froze. She leaned forward, rubbed her eyes, and tried to remember more details. She remembered being sad. She’d told him everything. What would he think of her now? She didn’t want to know, didn’t want to face him. How would he ever look at her the same? Would he hate her for not telling him when they were kids, so that he could have decided not to be such a disgusting person’s friend back then instead of finding out now and realizing she’d misled him all along? She didn’t want to go down and face him, but knew that she couldn’t just leave him in the jeep.
She got up and went to the window and pulled her curtains aside. He slept in the jeep, hunched over his arms on the steering wheel, completely gone. She went to her closet to find new clothes, and while she was pulling a sweatshirt over her hair, heard a knock on the bedroom door that startled her.
“Who is it?” She called out.
“Mary.” Said the voice on the other side. “Can I come in?”
“I’m changing.” Nicole said. Then she started to brush her teeth. “What is it?”
“Did something happen last night?”
Nicole looked guiltily at her own face in the mirror. What could she even say to that?
“Why?”
“Because I heard voices last night.” Mary said quietly from the other side of the door. “One was a man. You sounded upset but not enough for me to get out of bed and interfere. Was I wrong?”
Nicole put down her toothbrush and went to the door. She pulled it open and hugged her aunt. “Come on in.”
“You did the right thing, I handled it.” Nicole said, motioning towards the bed and sitting on it and inviting her aunt to do the same with a little pat on the bedspread beside her, but not too close. “I’m sorry if I woke you, that wasn’t considerate.”
“Thanks.” Mary looked at her with wary eyes and Nicole knew there was something else bothering her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Well.” The corner of her aunts mouth, which was full and round and one of her best features (just like Nicole’s) twitched, as if she was smothering a smile. It was a sure sign she was nervous. “There’s a jeep outside, it’s been there all night.”
Nicole frowned and took a breath, trying to figure out what to say.
“And there’s a guy in it, your friend from the other day. He’s been sleeping out there all night I guess.” Mary raised an eyebrow at her. “So what’s going on there?”
Nicole was silent for a moment, distracted by a tender feeling that rose whenever she thought that he had slept there for her all night. He hadn’t left even when it should have been obvious that it was okay to. She looked at the window while she answered her aunt.
“I had one of my nights.” She said.
“Oh no.” Mary said, wanting to reach for her but knowing that Nicole would just straighten away, like touch or love would burn her. “And he was there?”
Nicole nodded, but still didn’t face her. The words hurt, and she didn’t want to look weak or draw pity. “I told him everything. Well a lot. And I cried. And I poured my issues all over the floor like someone with no control.”
Mary listened, aching for her.
“And how did he react?”
“He…” Nicole thought back for a minute, saw him cradling her, refusing to disrespect her, gently chiding her for thinking he was one of the bad guys, then letting her cr
y on his shoulder (more accurately chest) until she fell asleep. “He was wonderful. He’s out in the car because some of my abandonment issues came out and I guess he didn’t feel he could leave, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to stay with me. So he’s been out there all night…” She turned back to her aunt and shrugged, as if she couldn’t understand it.
Mary smiled at Nicole’s confusion. “Oh, what a man. Just how I knew he’d be.”
“You barely know him!” Nicole picked up one of her decorative pillows and threw it at her aunt. “What the heck!”
Mary expertly deflected it and put her hands behind her on the bed and leaned on them. She let out a sigh. “I don’t really have to know him.” When Nicole raised an eyebrow at her, she continued, “I mean, meeting him validated what I had already thought. But honestly, Nicole. I saw that little boy sitting on the curb when I came to pick you up for the first time. I knew right then he was in love with you. And a special kid.”
“How did you know that?”
“Because he was with you. Because he chose you.” Mary gently reached out a hand to cover Nicole’s.
“Well I kind of chose him.” Nicole said, letting her aunt touch her. She had gotten used to it, had grown to like it. She had come to see that this might have been what a mother would have been like, or even any parent that hadn’t been so far in the wrong. But it was still hard sometimes, still painful sometimes, to even believe that her aunt didn’t have it in for her sexually. And that made her feel bizarrely broken. But when she did feel fearful, she overcame it relatively quickly now, was able to tell reality from the past more quickly and more often.
“Well you chose each other.” She said. When Nicole looked like she was about to correct her, she cut her off with “at least as friends. Like attracts like, and you’re a special girl.”
“Thanks.” Nicole said, leaning forward and giving her aunt a hug of her own will. She always felt like she was giving an extra special gift when she hugged someone on her own, partly because she knew that anyone who knew her knew that was a special privilege, or at least something she didn’t do with everyone or frequently. Not that if someone gave her one she had a problem. She just didn’t initiate often. She’d seen physicality hurt too bad to want to hurt anyone with it.
Her aunt held her with hands that were feeling more delicate now than 13 years ago. She pulled back to look at her in the face, a face so like hers that she hoped she could see her mom in it.
“Are you eating well? You’re always at meetings.”
Her aunt laughed but touched her cheek lightly, which did seem to look a bit more gaunt than usual. “I suppose so. I guess I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“You work too hard.”
“I don’t. That’s the problem. I feel like I have to go to every community improvement meeting possible, because your darn uncle left me too much money to have any ambition to hold a real job.”
Nicole laughed and squeezed her hand, pushed a lock of Mary’s hair back behind her ear. “Take care of yourself. I need you around.”
Mary laughed and stood. “And I need you, rascal.”
“I’m 26.” Nicole said.
“You’ll always be that rascally thirteen year old to me. Goodness you were tiny when I brought you here.” Mary went to the door and leaned against the jamb. “Would you like some breakfast?”
“No. But I guess I need it.” Nicole said, standing and stretching.
“What you need, is to go get that man of yours out of the car and bring him in for breakfast. I’d say he’s earned it.” Mary left before Nicole could retort that he wasn’t her man. Nicole went over for one last look at him, asleep in the jeep. What a sap. She grinned.
Chapter 11: Revelations
Sean ate his eggs between suspicious looks at Nicole and her aunt. He didn’t know what they’d talked about, how much the aunt knew, and therefore didn’t know if he should pipe up and defend himself about his reasons for being parked outside the house like a stalker. By the casual way Mary smiled at him as she refilled his glass, he hoped that she’d been told at least something, if not the whole truth. Then again, what was the whole truth anyway?
That he’d rushed over in the middle of the night? That she’d grabbed his crotch and blown his mind with her tortured revelations? That he didn’t know where to go from here? He hoped that Mary’s kindness was a reflection of knowledge or approval of the last night’s events, but he didn’t even know how long Nicole had been up before she’d come to thump on his window, startling him so that he sat up with a small drool trail on his chin before he realized what was going on. Cars were not meant for sleeping, and Jeeps weren’t built for comfort.
He hadn’t known what to say to Nicole, so had just followed her inside and accepted breakfast, as if the whole scene were completely normal, and he’d been planning to join the two lovely ladies for brunch all along.
“So Sean, tell me more about you. What do you do?” Mary poked at her eggs and smiled at him, waiting.
He had already picked up his orange juice so he brought it to his mouth and took a long drink to think of how to answer.
“I run a dojang.” He said, setting the glass down, avoiding Nicole’s eyes.
“Oh really?” Mary said, her eyes lighting up. “Nicole never mentioned that.” She gave Nicole a gentle push, and Nicole looked up at him with an embarrassed apology in her eyes and sighed.
“It’s not like I know much about it either.” She said. “He never brings it up.” She pretended to turn her attention back to her hash browns.
“I didn’t know you wanted to hear about it.” Sean said, finishing his eggs and pushing his plate aside. Mary got up as if to serve more and he waved her away, patting his stomach. “No thanks ma’am, all finished.”
Mary laughed. “You just get better and better.”
And this just gets worse and worse, he thought, wishing he could vaporize and disappear before things got more awkward between him and Nicole. She hadn’t acted like anything was different, and he didn’t see how that could be. She’d confided in him, she’d touched him. He knew they were only friends, but he had expected the past night to change the nature of their friendship somewhat. He wanted to be trusted. Would she be so embarrassed by the whole thing that she wouldn’t want to see him because it would remind her?
“When are you at the dojang, anyway?” She asked. “I’d like to see it sometime.
Sean flushed with pride. A part of him couldn’t believe this was happening, that she wanted to come see it, after so many letters, after being on the sidelines so much, she would come to see his life, even a part that had never involved her, even if it had all started because of her.
“I’m going in today, you’re welcome to come.” He got up to take his plate to the sink but was intercepted by Mary, who took it from him and rinsed it.
“I’ll take care of clean up.” She said, putting down the plate and moving to shoo Nicole out of her chair. “You kids go have fun.”
“I don’t know how much fun I can promise it’ll be. It’s still work.” Sean shrugged, and Nicole liked the way his shoulders pushed at his t-shirt. She tried to push that away though, because it would only lead to things like last night. He had asked her a favor, to just let him be a friend. Thought it was an odd favor for someone who’d apparently wanted to be more than a friend for so long, she decided it was the least she could do for him. Even if she was finally starting to see that she could want more as well. The world was such an ironic place, sometimes.
“It’s a new place.” She said. “I’ll drive myself, so that if I get bored, I can leave.”
Sean frowned and crossed his arms. “How ‘bout I drive, and just promise not to bore you.” He said, not liking the idea of her coming in, deciding it was lame before he could prove otherwise, and crushing his ego by leaving.
“Neanderthal.” She said, grabbing her purse and heading for the front door. Right before she grabbed the handle, she went back to hug her aunt a
nd give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for everything.” She said, and hoped it said everything she felt. Thanks for being supportive. Thanks for saving me. Thanks for being a mom. She hoped she’d imbued her words with all of that, but knew there would be time to tell her all of it later, even if saving kind words was a terrible motto for going through life.
Mary hugged her back, smiled at the kiss, and Sean looked over his shoulder just before following Nicole out the front door to see her touch her cheek and smile softly.
Sean looked periodically over at Nicole as he drove, taking advantage of every red light and stop sign on the way, until she told him ‘for goodness sake stop staring at me like I might spontaneously combust’. He loved her way with words.
“So if I show you where I work are you going to give me more insight into being a writer?”
She shrugged, wishing her shoulders could make the kind of impression his did when she did it. “If you want to. Not much to tell. I imagine pretty things and it takes my mind off my life, and then I spend hours and hours of agonizing time spent hunched over my keyboard transcribing those fantasies. Then I send them to my agent, and she does the rest.”
“Sounds interesting.” He said. “So you don’t do any marketing?”
“Not really.” She said. “I’m kind of the exception though. I really have no desire to be famous, and I made that clear when querying agents.”
“Querying?”
“Yes. Basically sending out work to see if anyone bites.”
“Ah.”
“I’m not crazy about my sales numbers, so I guess you could say I’m lazy.” She turned to look at the building in front of them. They’d pulled up in front of the dojang. She looked at the large sign in front that read “Tae Kwon Do”.
“Do you have to do a lot of marketing?” She asked, walking under his arm as he held the large glass door to the dojang open for her.
“Not really.” He said. “The main owner does most of it the way he always has, ads in the yellow pages or other small venues, offering free lessons or a free uniform. Then again, people also just tend to see the sign, and if they are looking for martial arts, it’ll catch their eye.”