by Katie Curtis
“Raph, don’t be ridiculous, you did not. It is, like, $5 a pound at home.” Anna laughed as she sat down on his enormous sofa, and took in the beautiful skyline view of the city. Without warning her mind played an image of Andrew tossing his traps onto the dock at the co-op. Those lobsters would go to Round Pound and be the ones that sold for $5 a pound. The rest would be kept in stone basins the lobstermen created in the ocean waters, like little lobster jails where they could be pulled out during the winter months, keeping the supply steady. She instantly felt guilty for thinking of Andrew while she was with Raphael.
“I knew you would say that, and I was just kidding. I am making pasta primavera with fresh vegetables from the farmer’s market near Central Park. But first, let’s go sit outside, it’s such a gorgeous day.” He took her hand and stood her up to follow him out. She followed easily, and was glad for the distraction of such an amazing view – looking out at the other roof tops made her feel like she was floating high above the city. They sat at the small bistro table and chairs he had put out there, and Raphael took her hand and held up her glass. “I would like to say cheers to such a gorgeous day with such a gorgeous woman. I love you, Anna,” he said, charm oozing from every pore. “And I am sorry we have been fighting lately. I think I was just so worried when you left, but you are back now and everything is fine.” Raphael kissed her sweetly, and Anna returned the kiss and smiled, though something was pulling at her on the inside. Something about the perfection of this moment was not sitting right with her. She tried to brush it off and return Raphael’s sentiments.
“I know, I love you too. And I am sorry we have been fighting, I think going home just made me figure out things that I should have figured out years ago. What is it they say? Youth is wasted on the young. And I was very, very young. But I can see myself balancing my time between Maine and New York now,” Anna said smiling.
“Wait, whad’you mean? Balancing your time between here and Maine?” Raphael shook his head and looked confused. “You mean, you’re thinking of something more permanent there? I thought you were just visiting your hometown, like millions of other people do without moving there.”
“Well those people didn’t get left a house in their hometown, I guess. Or have stellar painting views and happen to, I don’t know, produce paintings,” Anna said, her anger turning into sarcasm and making her sip her drink more quickly.
Raphael looked out at the skyline. He sighed deeply, and wandered inside, then came back out and sat down, holding Anna’s hand. He looked up sweetly at her and said, “Close your eyes.” Anna closed her eyes, and when she opened them, there on the table was a small black box, with a gorgeous diamond ring in the center.
“Anna,” Raphael started as he got down on his knee. “I want you to be my wife. I want us to get married and live in New York and have a fabulous life. And if you want to go to Maine a few times a year, that is totally reasonable. But I want you to build a life with me here. Please, tell me yes, that you will marry me and build a life with me.”
Anna stared in shock at the ring. She felt the pressure of Raphael’s hand wrapped around hers, and she could feel the weight of the particles of sunlight bouncing off the diamond on her arm. The world seemed to stop spinning just for a moment, and in that moment Anna forgot to breathe. Everything was perfectly right about this, but everything was wrong. Anna couldn’t deny it the second she saw the ring.
“Oh Raphael,” she started.
“Say yes, please, make me the happiest man in New York, in the world!” he said.
Anna knew that in front of her was the most passionate, romantic man she had ever known, and simultaneously that she couldn’t say yes. He had just been arguing with her about spending time in Maine, where her heart was pulling her. She knew that she couldn’t marry him as sure and as strong as she knew she loved Henry, or Marie. Or Andrew. Her mind raced at the thought. What was happening right now? Was she crazily throwing away the luckiest thing that had ever happened to her on an old flame? Andrew’s not exactly waiting for you, she chided herself. She was making a huge mistake. There was no way Raphael, king of loyalty and to-the-death passion would ever give her another chance. Her mind scrambled. What could she possible say? Her thoughts, her voice felt frozen in fear of ruining this moment.
“I..I can’t,” she said. She threw her face in her hands and felt her lip quiver. She looked up and her eyes welled up with tears. “I can’t marry you Raphael. I love you, but I can’t marry you.”
A wave of sadness, then anger, then an empty stone-cold expression passed over Raphael’s face. He held the box in his hand and looked out over the city. He sat silent for a long time. Anna didn’t move. She didn’t know what she could possibly say. Her heart beat loudly in her chest, and she tried to think of what she could do to make this moment better, to salvage the complete slashing she had just done to this relationship. She could feel the blood seeping out of it every second they sat there. She wanted a tourniquet, a compression to make it stop, make the hurting stop. For him, and for her. But there wasn’t one.
“Ok,” Raphael said. “Ok.” He stood up and started toward the door.
“I’m so sorry, Raphael, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. Please! Tell me you don’t hate me.”
He turned around and looked at her, his eyes revealing a part of him that was closed off. “I don’t hate you Anna. I don’t. But I will never be able to love you as much as I did one minute ago.”
Anna felt frozen, tied to the spot where she sat on an Earth that felt like it had stopped rotating.
Raphael snapped the box closed and picked up his Champagne glass. Anna watched him walk through the kitchen and pick up the Champagne bottle on the counter, then turn to his bedroom. She heard the door slam, and sat there, wondering what she should do. She walked into the kitchen and saw the pot of water boiling angrily on the stove. She turned the knob to the off position, killing the flame underneath, and left.
The next day she didn’t leave her apartment. She sat on her couch in her robe, and stared out the window. She sat for hours, and replayed it all in her mind. Meeting Raphael in the gallery, their sweet, easy beginning, how it had opened up real happiness in her for the first time since her mother’s death. Their rocky months before her uncle’s death, and then her trip home to Maine. What did all this mean? What had she given up? Because that much she knew. She knew she had given up on them.
She had hardly moved when Georgia came in. It was late afternoon, and when she came in she stared at Anna wide-eyed. “What happened?” she said, in shock at her friend’s appearance.
“I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count,” Anna said.
“Raphael broke up with you? You look like I did when Jake stomped all over my heart. Did he – did Raphael stomp on your heart?” Georgia sat down next to her on the couch and grabbed her hand, ready to empathize with a likewise betrayed friend.
“No. Worse. There is worse than getting your heart stomped on I think. I am the heart stomper. I stomped all over his heart when it was wide open.”
“What?” Georgia asked, confused.
“He asked me to marry him and I said no.”
“You said no.” Georgia didn’t ask, she re-stated.
“I said no.”
“Why?”
“That is what I have been trying to figure out here all day long. Why did I say no to a handsome, passionate, successful man who wanted to marry me?”
“I’m gonna go get the wine now, ok?” Georgia popped up and was back in a flash with a bottle and two glasses.
Anna sat with her head in her hands. “What kind of idiot am I?” she asked her friend. Her eyes sincerely pleaded for an answer.
“You’re not an idiot. Confused, maybe, but Anna, you’re not an idiot. I mean, there has to be a reason why you couldn’t say yes. Do you know what that might be?” she poured the wine into the glasses and sat down next to her friend and crossed one leg under the other.
&nbs
p; “Yes. No - I mean, I’m not sure. What is going on with me, please tell me!”
“Ok. Let’s start with your first reaction. What was it? Gut reactions are very important,” Georgia said, crossing her legs and settling in deeper on the couch.
Anna looked at her guiltily. She picked at the edge of her robe and tucked her feet underneath her. She looked back up and said, “That I couldn’t say yes because of how I felt about Andrew.”
“What?” Georgia looked at her with as much shock as if she had just announced she was moving to Brazil. “Are you serious?”
“Yup. I wish I wasn’t, but I am.”
“You still have feelings for Andrew? And just to be clear, you don’t have any prospects of a relationship with Andrew, but you have feelings for him, and for that you threw away a pretty good lotto ticket for life?”
“Yup.”
Georgia poured some wine in Anna’s cup and handed it to her.
“So, are you planning on telling Andrew? Back up, wait, did you tell this to Raphael?”
“No, I didn’t say that to Raphael, I just said I can’t marry him. And I have zero plans, no plans at all, surrounding Andrew. Like you said, I went with my gut, and I am slightly afraid that my gut has led me horribly, horribly astray.”
“Holy Crap.” Georgia took it all in, picked up her wine and took a big sip, and sat thinking. After they had been quiet for a few moments she turned to Anna. “What was it you said to me a few nights ago? When Jake left? You said, sometimes, things are not right in the foundation, in the structure of a relationship itself. And it was better to find out about it before you built a life or a house or whatever analogy you used, I was too busy crying to remember all of it.”
Anna sat back and thought about her own advice. It wasn’t half bad. “You know, even though the moment he proposed was a perfect moment, we were fighting so much the past few months. I think…I think you might be right,” Anna said. “I keep picturing the sunshine and the terrace and his cologne he wears for me and the way the diamond sparkled in the sunlight, and his crushed face when I said no. But you know, if I take the long view, I was pretty unhappy before I left for my uncle’s funeral. Raphael is passionate, but his passion can sometimes, I don’t know, swamp me. It was convenient when we first got together – I needed someone to jump start my life, and he did.” Anna took a sip of wine, and felt the weight of guilt and grief in her chest loosen a little. “But as I got stronger, as I healed and remembered the parts of me that are important, it was harder and harder to - I don’t know - feel like he saw me, or heard me. It started to feel like he didn’t even know me. I think…I think that’s why it didn’t feel right to say yes. I did the right thing. It’s not just about Andrew. It was about us. Thank you, Georgia.” She hugged her friend tightly and pulled back and looked at her with a smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her friend smiled at her, then laughed. “You know, I thought we were going to talk about me tonight and now I don’t even feel like it. I am so sad for you I can’t even be sorry for myself right now. Are you sure you aren’t Jedi mind tricking me?” Georgia laughed again. “Did you really just end it with Raphael?”
Anna let out a small laugh and wandered over to get her phone. “No tricks here. But I do think that a double break up calls for some serious Chinese food. I haven’t eaten anything and I’m starving.” She started to make the call and saw that there was a message from Genevieve. She couldn’t handle her strong-minded boss’s persuasion right now. She’d call her tomorrow.
She placed their standard order of General Tao’s Chicken extra spicy with broccoli and fried rice, and then sat down again, sighing heavily.
“What are you going to do about Andrew?” Georgia asked.
“I have no idea,” Anna said. “I planned to go back up to Maine next weekend. I guess I’ll just have to take it one day at a time. How about you? How is work going?”
“Ugg, I don’t want to think about it. I am doing a photo shoot for a magazine of inspiring couples and it just makes me want to curl up on a ball.”
“Want to come up to Maine?” Anna said. “I know a great house on the water we can stay at.”
“I’ll think about it,” she said smiling.
Chapter 22
The next morning, as she watched people outside her kitchen window pass by with umbrellas every color of the rainbow, dodging the slow rain that had been falling all morning, Anna sat making a list of everything she needed to do before she went back to Maine. She sipped her coffee and wrote with gusto, freeing her brain from the weight of so much change happening. Georgia had fallen asleep while they watched a comedy, a welcome check-out they both needed but was still no match for the fatigue of heartbreak. She had moved her to her bed before she went to sleep and she hadn’t woken up yet.
She replayed the evening at Raphael’s in her head and still winced, although it felt less raw after talking and laughing with her friend. As each passing moment helped the memory of hurting him recede, she could see more clearly that she had been right. And whether or not she ever got to tell Andrew how she felt, she did the right thing. Raphael was not right for her.
After she wrote down everything she needed to do, she pulled out a new sheet of paper and tried to sketch a little, thinking it would clear her head, but she couldn’t. Her mind felt too heavy. She dreamed of going back to the boathouse at her uncle’s, feeling the violent wind off the ocean push against the weathered wooden shingles, and pouring out her heart through her fingers onto the canvas. She would wait until she was back to paint.
She took a shower and glanced at the clock. It was just after nine, and she was supposed to meet Miranda at church soon. Anna dressed and looked up directions to the church. She suddenly remembered her plans to go shopping with Georgia later that afternoon. She scribbled a quick note to see if they were still on, and if she could meet her on 5th Ave after the Met. She was glad her day was full, and that she was off the couch and out of her robe. With only five days left in the city and no boyfriend, and no ability to work in her current state of mind, what else was there to do but shop?
Anna walked up the steps to the church, and as she entered, shook off the rain from her umbrella. Her senses were bombarded. An organ was playing the entrance antiphon, and a group of choir voices were answering it in earnest. Light streamed in, rays of kaleidoscope color, through the stained-glass windows. The tall red brick walls made her feel solid and secure.
She saw Miranda wave at her, and took a seat by her side, squeezing her arm in greeting. Miranda’s mother leaned forward and smiled at Anna. She sat back and listened to the voice of the priest echo against the brick walls, and in his reciting of prayers, Anna found herself draw inwards. She had gone to Mass a few times since the funeral, and she was amazed at how comforting it was. The familiar prayers, the feeling of being in a community. Her mind was on the conversation she wanted to have with Miranda’s mother, but she found herself thinking of her mother. Of Sundays spent at church sitting next to her, just like Miranda was doing. As the readings of Genesis echoed against the walls, she thought of hours with her mother spent talking about God and nature and art. The Creator and creation. She did not expect to feel so peaceful here today.
Especially because she was still so upset about Raphael. As the days passed, the grief of ending her relationship with him seamed to expand, like bread rising. “It takes time,” Georgia kept saying. She bent her head and said a prayer for him. And for herself. She could feel herself stronger, though, this time around. She knew a little more how grief worked. She had to feel all her feelings. The dreams that were gone, the memories that haunted. They all had to be counted and weighed and sorted in order for the knot in the center of her chest to loosen. She knew it would help to go to Maine, to let the sound of the ocean crashing in her ears drown out all of the memories she had of him here in the city.
After Mass, they streamed out, the rain finally ceasing. She smiled at Miranda and her family. Her mothe
r Maria wore her long hair down, like her daughters, and she had added a little blush and mascara, and gloss on her lips, and looked pretty. Miranda’s sister, Gabriella, looked just like Miranda, with the same long dark hair and dimples.
“Thank you so much for letting me go to church with you,” Anna said.
Miranda’s mother turned to Anna, “I didn’t realize you went to church, Anna.”
“I grew up going in Maine. I just came back from a family funeral there, and I guess it reminded me what I’ve been missing.”
Maria looked at her. “Yes, you seem happier. I always thought you seemed just a little bit sad,” she said.
Anna was taken by surprise at her honesty. How could she seem happier when she was so upset about Raphael? But perhaps it was true. Maybe she was happier after all. Stronger, definitely. “Well, my mom passed away a while ago, and I think I had a hard time getting over it. I probably did carry that sadness with me. But going home helped me, I think.”
Maria nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. It’s hard losing people we love.” Anna saw a knowing look in her eyes, and she quickly realized it was the hard-won kind of wisdom that you get when you lose your husband with two small daughters. She suddenly felt a wave of empathy and gratitude for the woman who stood before her. “So you two are off to the Met?” Maria asked.
Miranda brushed her long hair over her shoulder. “Yes - I am so excited!” She opened her eyes wide and grabbed Anna’s arm. “Did you know they have a new exhibit on Georgia O’Keefe?” she asked, her voice bubbling over with excitement.
“Remember to be home in time to study for your big history test tomorrow, ok?” Marie interrupted.
“Si, mama,” she answered smiling.
“Before we leave,” Anna interrupted, “I just wanted to ask you a question Maria. When I went home, the foundation that my father runs – it’s an art camp in my mother’s name - they have some openings for art students to come up this summer for two weeks and paint. I thought it might be an amazing opportunity for Miranda. If you both think it is a good idea, I can fill out the application online with her.”