by Paloma Meir
“But...”
“But what, Zelda?” A tear rolled down the side of her face. I wiped it away. “I do love you, and if you want soulful talk I’ll give it to you...”
“You heard us in the dining room?” She looked surprised, and a little embarrassed.
“You were no more than fifteen feet away from me. The door didn’t offer the silence you assumed.” I almost laughed, “You two were loud... My love for you? It transcends sex. I don’t need to be with you that way...” I sighed and laid my head down upon her chest. “But I don’t do well without you... I never have... I get lost.”
“Serge...”
“Your input in to this conversation is not offering much lucidity... You were right, Zelda. I did leave you because of the money. It wasn’t clear to me at the time, and if you asked me an hour ago, I would have sworn it was for your own good, for Danny’s good. It wouldn’t have been true, but it was what I’ve always thought...”
“I told you...”
“Yes you did, and you were right.”
“I’m not getting any satisfaction from that.”
“I know that feeling... I needed to be own man, build my own way.”
“You were never your father.”
“Okay, Ms. Freud...”
“Serge...”
“I need to think," I lifted myself off her chest and looked in her eyes, “I can live with the choices I made, I can live with a lot of things, but you thinking that I never loved you, that it was just a “fuck” is not something I can live with...”
“I...”
“I need you to be quiet,” I kissed the tip of her nose, “I was waiting for you to grow-up. You were such a child, so innocent, so completely vulnerable.” I kissed her lips.
“Your fifteenth birthday, do you remember it?” I asked and continued speaking before she could answer, “I walked you home after dinner and left you at your door. I didn’t know what the future held. I didn’t know that would be the last moment for me to...” I rolled off of her, but pulled her still nude body to my side. She placed her arm across my chest.
“I wanted to kiss you at the door. I wanted to kiss you on the walk down the hill. If I could do it over again... I would kiss you. I would have taken you back into your room. The coat you were wearing? The black spy coat? The one you weren’t wearing anything underneath of? I would have stripped it off you.”
“I wore a bra and underwear...”
“I’m sure you were, off they would have been. We were kids and maybe it would have been moving too fast, but I would have been with you that night. You wouldn’t have been scared because I loved you Zelda, and I would have said it over and over again, and it would have been true...”
I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She lay silent, finally.
“But it didn’t happen that way. You went to the party and met Danny. I didn’t know it was the love to last a lifetime, although, of course, the both of you did announce that bit of information to everyone...”
She laughed, and I liked it.
“I tried to wait it out, and then you were so hurt...” I paused unsure of the direction my thoughts were heading, “I was so helpless to do anything... I failed my mother and Celena... I didn’t ever want to fail you. Danny was strong. It was easier to let him care for you. I was weak. So many openings with you, and I never took them. I ran from them... In my room the day you came home from rehab, the night you left for Spain... Scared... always afraid, but not now Zelda.”
“I looked for you in all the other girls and then women... Marianne, Jimena, both with your delicate nature... all the other ones too." I turned towards her, our bodies facing each other, and somehow in the position managed to lift her chin so that we looked into each other’s eyes. “Do you remember the night by your pool? I was trying to explain physics to you? I never finished the Shakespeare quote... Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. Okay, Zelda? I meant it then and I mean it now. Put your clothes back on.”
She crawled off the side off the bed, and put them back on. I stared at her, knowing it would be the last time I saw her that way. Her beautiful body in the glow of the light from sun that tapered through the rice paper blinds. She crawled back into bed, and we went back to watching the lecture series, eventually both us fell back to sleep in the early afternoon hour.
“Zelda up,” I heard Danny say, “This is not happening.”
I opened my eyes to see not a bronzed God, but an angry one standing above us.
“Up babe,” he took her hand, gently lifting his drowsy Zelda up off the bed, “The kids are looking for you.”
“Oh... okay.” She stood up next to him, her hand in his. She looked unaware of her surroundings.
“Leilani was telling me that you’re back here every day... You’re done... I don’t want to tell you what to do, but I’m telling you what to do. This ends now.”
“Ummm... okay.” They or she stumbled to the door.
“Danny,” she looked to him, suddenly coherent, awake, “he touched me when I was asleep, I didn’t like it, so I took off my clothes, and I kissed him... that’s it though. It’s a very long story. But it’s over now, over for good.” She looked my way, and I wanted to die, “Right, Serge?”
“Yes Zelda, over, done. Not much else to say.” I closed my eyes and hoped to fall back to sleep and wake up to discover this moment was a nightmare. Not to be.
“We’ll talk about it later. Go in the house. Our kids are looking for you.” I heard a kiss, and the door shut. I hoped Danny had left with her, but I knew he hadn’t.
“I know you’re awake. Open your fucking eyes.”
I not only opened my eyes, but stood up and walked to the closet to pack my things.
“That’s it? Nothing to say? Going to run off to Australia? Commune with the aborigines? What’s your plan this time, buddy?” He did not say buddy in a way that made me think I was his buddy.
I didn’t respond, instead I stuffed the clothes in my bags in a way Zelda wouldn’t like.
“Put the bag down,” Danny said, or ordered, the edge in his voice not something I wanted to hear.
“Sheep herding in Ireland,” I dropped the bag and sank to the floor.
“She’s not yours. Never was, never will be.” He opened the door and lingered, finally speaking. “Meet me by the front gate, tomorrow, 5:30 A.M.”
“Okay,” I nodded.
“A.M. means morning... Sleeping all day... fucking...” He muttered as he slammed the door to my room.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Here,” he hurled a very pink squishy lunchbox at me as I walked towards the front gate. One wouldn’t think a soft lunchbox would hurt, but it did, right into the softness of my solar plexus it had landed, “Is that what you’re wearing?”
I looked down to see I had thrown on a pair of yellow and brown plaid shorts and a black polo. I didn’t see a problem. “Yes it is.”
“Those shoes?”
Brightly colored top of the line Nike running shoes were on my feet. Again I didn’t see a problem. “These are my shoes Danny,” I shrugged, “If you like I can go back in and change. I wasn’t given instructions beyond a time and place.”
“No problem, dude. Learn the hard way dude, like you always do.”
I ignored his early morning conversation starter and followed him to his Audi, of course an Audi, outside the wall of their home.
“She woke-up at 4:30, wanted to make you a special breakfast. Open the lunchbox, and eat up. Your lunch is in there too.”
“Thanks. Can I ask where we’re going?” He sped up the highway going farther north to the less developed part of the island.
“You left man, just left.”
“That I did Danny. Where are we going?”
“Three months she fucking cried. Everyday in her room, sat there... fucking inconsolable. You left her that way... and then you come back and try to start it up again? Fuck you, Serge.”
“If I had known, I
would have come back,” I stared straight ahead. I did not look his way.
“Funny... she never wanted you to come back. She wanted you to have never left.”
“I can see that... I wasn’t trying to start it up again. I wasn’t thinking and nothing would have happened. I wouldn’t do that to any of us.”
He hit the side of my head with the flat of his palm, more a push than an act of violence.
“You wouldn’t have done it? Dude, wake-up, she wouldn’t have done it. Nothing can come between us.”
“A lot of 'things' came between the two of you before.” Why I was trying to antagonize him is beyond my understanding.
“We learned from it.” He looked my way with disgust, not something I wanted to get used to, “You? You learn nothing. She told me everything. The whole fairytale she worked up in her head over you and her. Shitload of garbage. I was there. I saw it all, from day one.”
“Okay, Danny.” He made a sudden turn up a very steep hill, into what looked like a forest.
“You know what I saw?”
“No I don’t, and I’m not that interested... Where are we going?”
“We’re here.” He screeched into a spot off the main road overlooking a construction site, one of his I assumed. He leaned against the door and stared at me, making me very uncomfortable. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”
“Why don’t you just punch me in the face? Get it over with, move on.”
“I’m not an angry little fuck like you.”
“Okay Danny.... angry little fuck... hmmmm... You want to show me around? Is that why we’re here? Brendan told me you were doing well with real estate and construction.”
“Win is what I do.” He shook his head with a look similar to the one the valet had given to me a month earlier. “ When was the last time you talked to Brendan. Been a while from what I heard. But back to you angry little fuck.”
“It would really be easier if you just punched me, get it over with.” I held out my head, closed my eyes and wished for a broken face over another word out of his mouth.
“How many yellow cards did you get down in Peru? How many red cards, Serge? Fucking open your eyes. I’m not going to punch you.”
“I lost count.” I opened my eyes and relaxed into my seat, stared straight ahead.
“Everyone thought Brendan was the maniac on the team, but they weren’t paying attention. I was though. You did twice as much damage.”
“Okay, Danny, angry little fuck I was...” I put my hand on the door handle.
“Horny little fuck, too. You and Celena... What the fuck were you two doing? It was high school.”
“What are you talking about?” The angry little fuck in me was waking up. “She was my girlfriend. We had sex, like half the other kids were doing. I don’t remember you and Zelda holding off until marriage.”
“It wasn’t sex like everyone else was having... Celena and then Marianne blowing you in the car at lunch every day...”
“Fuck you, Danny.” I got out of the car, slammed the door hard, walked down the hill.
“Serge stop.” At my side, he walked in pace with me. I did not stop. “I’m trying to help you.”
“How is this helping?” I stopped and turned to him, “I don’t need help.”
“Come on. I brought you here for a reason.” With a head gesture towards the construction I followed him to the site.
“You know what I saw with you and Zelda?” He asked as we stood on spot overlooking the valley of houses he was building.
“What Danny?” I let out an exasperated sigh.
“A boy who fell in love with his sister.”
“Well thanks... that was helpful.” I rolled my eyes, “Are you going to show me around?”
“That’s why it never worked. It’s why you wanted me with her. Big brothers want the best for their sisters.”
“Did I want you with her? What are we even talking about?”
“Think about it.” He patted my shoulder as if he had imparted great wisdom onto me, then called out to one of the workers, “Hani, over here bring a shovel.”
Hani was big, bounding up the hill, shovel in hand. He reminded me of Marco. I wondered what had happened to him as Danny placed the shovel Hani was holding into my hands.
“I’ll be back at 4:00, buddy.” He pulled my head down on his shoulder and rubbed it hard. “Hani get him to work. He’s a haolie but strong like me, or will be in a couple days.” They both laughed as I stood stunned.
Danny hopped back in the car and drove off.
“Well…” I said to Hani, not knowing what else to say, not knowing what Danny had said to him about his clean-cut well-coiffed friend who was now employed to dig ditches I guessed from the shovel in my hand.
“Brah,” His large baseball mitt of hand clasped my shoulder, “this way.” I followed him down the incline, taking in the lay of land now that Danny wasn’t around to distract me with his interrogation or intervention; wrongheaded either way.
All variety of trees surrounded the valley-like plot of land that from the looks of it had just been mowed down. A peaceful feel filled the area, not so different from the rest of the island but the quiet of the early day intensified the effect, the thickness of the air. A few of the workers drank their coffee from large silver thermoses, not ready to start their chatter that I correctly sensed would fill the rest of the day.
“Good spot for homes. Luxurious by the look of the size of the plots,” I said in an attempt to engage in friendly small talk with the giant Hani.
“Your friend wanted to take the whole mountain-side, the islanders fought him. But…”
“He won,” I said before he could.
“A compromise was reached. He’s refurbishing the local elementary school, scaled down the project too.”
“Everybody won then.”
“You could say that.” We stopped by orange roped off area, “Hana.”
“Serge,” I held out my hand. He did not take it.
“Hani is my name,” he laughed. “Hana is local for work. Hawaiian.”
“Oh, a dialect or is it it’s own language?”
“Hana, dig.” He pointed to the ground, “Two feet, follow the path.” He wandered off to the other men laughing, speaking quickly in the dialect/language.
I dug as they presumably laughed at my soft body and leisure clothes digging a hole in the ground I was sure the mini-tractor parked across the valley was meant for. I didn’t mind, being out of bed on the bright morning felt good.
Meditative is what digging an endless ditch was, repetitive, the blood flowing through my veins. The chatter of workers around me white noise, drowning out the world, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My thoughts you ask? I couldn’t tell you, more visual than linear words. Visions of my life, digging holes through it, my father by my side digging along with me is what it felt like for a good hour. A loud blast of laughter from the home being constructed across from the one I was working broke through my daydream, leaving me a little lonely without my paternal figure working beside me.
Hani tapped me on the shoulder around eleven, although I didn’t know what time or day it was when I felt his fingers on my back telling me it was time for lunch. I dropped the shovel and followed him to the shade of a large tree that reminded me of a Banyan but without the downward roots growing from the branches. We sat down to eat with all the other workers.
Zelda had packed me a beautiful lunch. A roast beef sandwich on toasted sourdough filled with goat cheese, a few passion fruits, a banana and dozens, really an embarrassing amount of chocolate chip cookies. I shared them with my fellow workers, winning them over. Good job Zelda, always taking care of me.
I sat and listened, interested in the island's patois, similar to some of the broisms of my youth but fuller, a vast language, a hard poetic sound, manly all the way through. They referred to Danny as the Kahuna, and not sarcastically as most employees would if gossiping about the boss at lunch. They g
enuinely liked him.
Lunch was over quickly, but not fast enough for me. I was eager to get back to work and capture the spirit again, whatever forest muse had caught my mind. It was more of a serene buzzing after the big lunch, but pleasant all the same.
By the mid-afternoon break my back felt a strain. I stretched while the others ate jerky-like strips of roasted pig, declining their offers to try it. They nodded their heads to each other as if I was making a mistake, and they were correct. An hour after the break, my back was still tight, but I was also lightheaded from hunger.