by Paloma Meir
“What? How?” He asked after his friends had left, taking the bags off my back, “Dude, you’re here...” He smiled relaxing for a moment, but the tenseness returned.
“I ran into Zelda...” That was about all I could say.
“I see that... buddy...” His strong hand clasped my shoulder and led me to the sofa and I sunk down upon it. Cozy, I felt as if I could close my eyes and fall into a deep slumber. Long day it had been.
“Zelda,” He said to the one who had been quietly standing in the spot he had left her in, her hand wrapped around her chin, pulling on it, “Dining room, babe.” He tossed me the television remote to me, “Back in a minute, make yourself comfortable. Brazil vs. Uruguay should be starting soon. ESPN dude.”
I flipped through the channels, trying to find ESPN as they walked into the adjoining dining room, the door, swinging back and forth with the way they pushed through it. I landed on BBC, a documentary narrated by a man who would have been my contemporary if I had stayed in the sciences narrated. I stopped searching for the sports channel and settled into watch. The volume of television was set to mute, bright subtitles filled the bottom of the screen.
Their conversation in the other room grew loud but not angry, but I didn’t want to hear it. I searched for the volume on the oversized remote but could not find it. My eyesight was blurry from sleepiness. I shut my eyes and willed their words away. No such luck.
“You don’t understand, he was telling me about his Viking range...”
“Yeah I get it. He’s changed. L.A. will do that to you babe.”
“That’s not it. It’s much deeper than that, Danny... The things he said. It wasn’t Serge, a caricature of the worst of humanity... morally bankrupt. The things he said about those poor babies. The things he said to me... To me, Danny.”
“I get it, but this is Serge. Every five years like clockwork, he changes his life. First year of college, done with... what was it? Theoretical Physics? He wants to be an astronaut all of a sudden?”
Funny of him to mention that. I had forgotten about it. I almost laughed but was too tired.
“Everyone’s like that in college, changing majors all the time,” Zelda protested. I changed the channel as Brian Cox stared into the night sky explaining the difference between a black and red dwarf.
“You’re forgetting his high school years. Dude was serious about it. All he talked about when he wasn’t trying to be a bro and how real was that ever? Dude was a genius. It was like he was studying us, learning the language. An anthropologist.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He was not a “bro." Serge was a scholar.” I imagined she had crossed her arms with a pout.
Finding the game, I settled in, wishing they would lower their voices.
“Zelda, he goes down to South America for a vacation and doesn’t come back. He’s a soccer player? He had grad school set-up. Who does that? Serge does that.”
“None of that matters. He never changed inside. He was always Serge. Kind, sensitive, not this monster that’s in our living room right now.”
I almost spoke up for myself but Neymar moved across the field with such style, falling to the ground, his legs destroying the ball. I went back to ignoring them.
“Again, I get it, but you know what I would've done if I had run into him like that?” His tone was bordering on condescending, but she didn’t interrupt him, “I would have listened to his story, and complimented him on his appliances. You know why I would have done it that way?”
“No, you wouldn’t have. You would have brought him back here as I have done.”
“I wouldn’t have brought him here Zelda because I know Serge. If you hadn’t shown up, you know what he would have done? Moved to Ireland and become a sheepherder. Or maybe an English tutor in China. That’s what Serge would have done.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
I was tempted to get up, go into the dining room, and offer Danny a heartfelt high-five because he was right. But Uruguay scored a goal, so I didn’t move. Good game.
“No, it’s not... You think you know him... You do know him... None of this is important.” Big sigh from the bronzed God, “Babe, it’s you. I don’t want it to start up again. My fault it ever began, but all that soul talk... I can’t listen to it again. I did my time. Never again in my life do I want to hear you talk about the happiest week of your life that you spent with him.”
“I never said that. I’m sure I said a happy week, not the happiest.”
He mumbled something I couldn’t hear. The turn in the conversation interested me. I sat up in the seat.
“The happiest time in my life has been with you. How could you ever think anything different my darling?” She cooed, “Do you want me to make a list? Number one...”
And with that I lost interest in the conversation. I leaned back in the poufy sofa enveloping my ears in the overstuffed pillows hoping to silence her. It worked.
“Up buddy,” Danny stood above me, startling me, so lost in the game I was, “Late bedtime, cottage time.”
I stood up and looked around for Zelda.
“She’s upstairs already, checking on the kids. My kids with her, our kids.”
“Thanks for clarifying their parentage,” I joked without thinking.
“Good one buddy. Maybe Zelda was right about you.”
“Didn’t mean it that way. Directed at your possessiveness, not Zelda’s lost years with Paolo.”
“Lost years with Paolo?” he laughed, “Good one, maybe you’re not a lost cause. Come on.” He gestured his head towards the front door.
“You know, I don’t know what I’m doing here... Zelda... persuasive... hard to say no to.” I broached as we walked through the garden to the little pink cottage closest to the main house. “I’m going to head back in the morning... or maybe spend a couple of days in Honolulu and then go...”
“You’re here, dude.” He opened the door, turning on the lights, “Happy to see you, didn’t think I ever would see you again. Texted you after Leilani and David were born... No response.” He shrugged.
“Well, you know, the lawsuits weren’t going to file themselves.” An apology or explanation was beyond me. In fact, at the time I found my response to him suitable, and truthful.
“Uhhh yeah...” He hugged me tightly. I felt like my back was going to break, “Good to have you back. We’ll work on your “moral bankruptcy” in the morning. Night.” And with that he was gone. Back to the main house, back to the bed he shared with Zelda, back to his kids, back to a life worth living.
I sat down on the edge of the bed, pulled the shoes off my swollen feet, took out my phone, sent an email to the office with one line stating, “I quit." I would never respond to their calls or other attempts to contact me. Law chapter of my life finished, closed forever. I fell asleep partially clothed thinking it had been the least eventful, least meaningful part of my life.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I woke up the next day without the desire to get out of bed, so I didn’t get out of bed.
It was surprisingly easy to stay there after the first day. Zelda seemed to understand my choice after a few attempts to get me up on day one of my bed-in. I wasn’t going to move. I don’t think she ever believed I felt fluish from the flight, or that I had picked up a bug. We had been alone in the first class section, and it was summer, a low illness season if such a thing existed. I had studied physics, not public health.
The maids, of which there were many, even more than the nannies, which Astrid oversaw, floated around the estate. My meals were brought to me, my sheets changed daily, mysteriously while I was in the shower. My clothes, or boxers and t-shirts I wore were laundered in the same way. I didn’t question it.
On day three, Danny stopped by to check on me. I feigned a fever, similar to the one he had all those years before when he harmed Zelda. I imitated him down to the last retching sound. I had never been much of an actor, so I didn’t think he believed it, but it did
work. He didn’t check on me again.
I slept maybe fourteen hours a day, but non-consecutively. Late nights spent watching physics documentaries, chatting with Caitlin whom I hadn’t spoken to since my first in year in Peru. So far our lives had drifted apart.
She lived happily in Switzerland working at CERN. She had done some important work on the LHC. She breathlessly explained to me their research, catching me up on it, as if it were gossip between two very old friends. I suppose we were, and I suppose our friendship had always been based around science, as so many other relationships were back at MIT.
Her mind was obsessed with it all. She didn’t question what I was doing on the North Shore of Hawaii seemingly up all night, available for long conversations. Fine with me. I couldn’t have explained it anyway.
Lunchtime was my time with Zelda. She would bring me a tray I noticed was filled with foods designed to reduce stress, lots of bananas, high fiber. She didn’t question my bed-in but did speak to me in very low even tones as if I were a mental patient. Charming to the end. I did not address her maternal ways, preferring to enjoy the one on one attention she offered. The bright spot of my day.
After lunch she would lay on the bed with me, watching a documentary, asking me questions about specific theories as she had done as a girl. Occasionally I would respond in ways she found “morally objectionable," but my crassness was fading away. One would think that would be good but no, my vulgarity was replaced with nothingness, leaving me feeling lost, and very alone even with her by my side.
I couldn't put words to my feelings. A low swirling morass of malaise is how I tried to describe it to her to one day. Never again, her sadness, putting the blame on herself for reasons I couldn’t understand, shut me down further. Brave face for Zelda after that, back to complaining about the phantom virus that had invaded my system.
She lay beside me on day thirty of my bed in, asleep on her back. I looked her way excitedly to point out a prescient theory the great Richard Feynman had made in the documentary we were watching. She was asleep and her baby blue wrap dress had fallen away from for shoulder. Her chest rose and fell, her nipple erect under her flimsy white lace bra. A stirring in my groin, a stiffness in my shorts. Hypnotized, I imagined her skin beneath my hand, the mound of breast in my mouth.
I reached over to her gently, hovering over the porcelain beauty of her, my finger tracing her nipple. Her breaths quickened, but she did not wake, nor did I want her to. Her legs rubbed together, a soft sigh escaped from her mouth I was tempted to kiss.
Sound asleep she was, excited I was. The morality of what I was doing did not enter my mind as if the moment existed outside of reality. I moved the lace of the bra down, my fingers on her skin, more sighs. Her hand at her side rubbed against her thigh moving its way to her hips.
Mesmerized I was, wanting her hand under her dress, wanting to see her touch herself. Her hand near her dress, a sensuous move of her hips. Into the folds, I willed her sleeping body, not to be.
“Serge,” she bolted up in the bed, pulling her dress shut, on her feet in a blink of an eye, “You violated me while I was asleep?”
“No... I mean yes, but not like that. Morally bankrupt?” I tried to joke, but I knew it was a losing game. Her of all people. I violated her.
“Is this what you wanted?” She ripped off her dress and bra in one angry motion.
“No... Zelda... Stop... I didn’t mean it... I’m sorry,” I stammered and raised my hands in surrender.
“I don’t feel this way when we spend time together. I don’t feel this way when we watch the movies, or nap... But when you touch me...” Her tone was the opposite of her words.
“An affair, is that what you want? While Danny’s out working, and my children are busy at school or playing in the house? You want me to sneak away to be with you?” She crawled across the bed and lay on top of me, wiggling against me. It was not an erotic experience.
“You want that cheapness? That deception?” She paused and kissed me deeply. I did not respond. My erection was long gone, my body stiff instead with tenseness. “I’ll do it for you Serge.” Grinding against me is what she was doing.
“Do you remember what you said to me after our first kiss?” I did remember, and I was sure that I did not want her to repeat it back to me, “I’m not in love you, I just want to fuck you hard,” She kissed me again, forcefully, “That’s the only true thing you’ve ever said to me, Serge.”
“You know that’s not true. Get up, Zelda," I tried to wiggle her off me, but she wasn’t budging.
“Always trying to get your attention when we were growing-up. All the things I did for you to see me... So humiliating, Serge... I couldn’t even face the truth in me until well after you left... You never had any time for me... ever.”
“Always, every moment of my life, I loved you. From that ridiculous lie about your heart-shaped tree house until this very minute. And this minute, I would like you to get off of me.” I did not wiggle beneath her because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The beautiful Ms. Moreau was on a roll.
“How is this love, Serge?” she asked slowly, deliberately, her eyes a squint, “I love Danny. I love my family. Why would you want this of me? Why would you want something so cheap? Never any love from you.”
“I spent half my youth with your hand in mine, hugging you ever chance I could find, at your bidding my fair maiden. “Always” to use your hyperbolic choice of words.” Exasperated by her, I yelled.
“I didn’t say you weren’t my friend, that you didn’t care for me, but it was never love, “always” playing with my emotions. Was it fun, Serge?” She buried her face in my neck, ran her lips over my throat, and judging by the way my body reacted I would say I liked it. “Never good enough, never something enough... You never wanted to be with me. A fuck is what you wanted, and a fuck is what you got.”
“Wrong.”
“Maybe... I don’t think so though...” She lay down upon my chest, her erotic squirming finished. She turned to her side and spoke in a dreamy far off way, “Poor Danny... so much he had to listen to from me... so patiently... I didn’t stop until Leilani was born. He really listened to me... It must have been so hard for him...”
She paused, and I hoped she would never speak again. Nope, not to be. She did carry on.
“It was a home birth,” I sensed the memory lightening her mood, “He caught her in his arms. He would barely let anyone even look at her, even me, Serge. It broke my heart how much he put into her, how bad it was with what happened with him and Louisa. How much he had missed. You know?”
I mumbled in the affirmative.
“He wouldn’t let anyone take care of me, only him. Astrid was not happy about that. And food, every meal he prepared for me, not letting me out of the bed for two weeks. As if birthing makes you infirm. Just the three of us in my big bed, sometimes Louisa, but Astrid kept her busy most of the time. I guess she knew Danny needed that.” I felt a tear on my chest, and I almost added my own.
“I may have been the only woman in history to have weighed more two weeks after the birth of a baby. He kept feeding me, so strange,” she laughed lightly.
I could have answered her pondering, but the words would have hurt. And I think we’ve already established that I was an emotional coward.
“But if this is what you want, then fine Serge, but you have to answer me first. How is this love? How was it ever love?”
“This right here, what is going on right now is not love. And no Zelda I do not want the “cheapness” of an affair with you.” I squirmed out from under her, but I was a little angry about her wrongful and deluded soliloquy. I rolled on top of her and leaned over her. Her eyes wide, not with fear, but shock.
“To violate you while you slept, or anytime is not something I would have ever thought I was capable of... What you’ve been saying about my “moral bankruptcy”? I’ve been laughing it off, humoring you, but it’s true. I take what I want, and I’ve been doing it for years no
w, years Zelda. I can honestly say to you, that while I have not violated women, I did choose women who wouldn’t care, women who used me as much as I used them.”
She sighed practically spitting at me, but did not try to wiggle her way out from under me.
“Don’t start with one of your teenage feminism speeches. You know that Los Angeles is filled with women like that, but I grew bored with their materialism, with their baby talk, calling me “Daddy." I moved on to married women, easier, less emotional ties. I haven’t been “good” in a very long time.”
“No.”
“No to what, Zelda?” I didn’t wait for an answer, “I am sorry I touched you like that. I am so sorry. It wasn’t love that made me do it. It wasn’t a desire for a “cheap” affair. I didn’t think about it, I just did it, like so many other things I've done since I left you. Not a lot of boundaries in my life...”