by Lisa Ladew
That was strange, Bronx thought as he watched her go. Almost like she hadn't finished high school. But how could that be? For the first time, Bronx wondered if Eme could be hiding something. Maybe that's why no one knew anything about her.
Ina pushed her ice cream away. "This shit is gonna make me fat." She shot Bronx a look like she was pissed at him. "Tell her I said thanks. I gotta go."
"Bye, Ina," Bronx called softly. Well, that part had been easy at least. He didn't have to beg off because she didn't want to meet him again. Now to say good-bye to Eme and he was golden.
When she came out of the bathroom, he stood. "Ina had to go."
"Oh," she said, cleaning off their table and pointedly not looking at him.
He cleared his throat. "I guess I better go too. It was fun."
She didn't say anything and Bronx wondered if she was pissed too. He didn't think he had done anything, but he knew you could never be sure with women. At this point though, he just wanted to forget about her for a little bit.
"Ok, then. See you later," he said and walked towards the door, knowing he wouldn't see her again for a long time. Just as well.
He pushed out into the fading afternoon light and started off on the sidewalk towards his truck.
"Bronx, wait," Eme called from behind him, the jingle of the bell announcing her exit from the ice cream shop.
Had he forgotten something? He stopped and turned towards her.
She ran up to him, her pretty face flushed. "Bronx, ah, I know we just had ice cream, but did you want to get dinner with me tonight? I'll pay."
Bronx just stared at her, not understanding. His throat worked convulsively and he tried to speak. "What like a date?"
She dropped her eyes and her cheeks flooded crimson. "Yeah, kinda."
Bronx smiled and looked up at the sky, his heart skipping along like a child on the first day of spring.
"Yeah, I do. Let me just make a phone call first. And I'm paying."
Chapter 20
Eme
Eme took another bite of her Moroccan salmon and savored it, eyeing the couscous and cherries on the side. She was saving that for last. The night so far had been perfect, and she couldn't believe how Bronx had pulled it off with absolutely no notice. He'd taken her to Union Square and, over her protests, bought her an elegant shawl that had pulled her everyday outfit together and made it acceptable for a romantic restaurant like Gitane, where they were now eating in low-lighted luxury.
He'd pulled a blazer and a change of shoes out of the back seat of his truck and transformed in front of her eyes from hard-working, blue-collar guy to sophisticated gentleman. He kept a foot in both worlds, making her watch him, wanting to figure out his secret.
"So where are you from?" he asked, making adrenaline squirt through her arteries. She wanted to hide behind her napkin, she was that flustered at the question.
Oh yeah, this was why she shouldn't be dating. Simple questions like this that could actually destroy everything she'd fought and clawed to build.
Would she never be free?
She took a deep breath. She was here now. She just had to deal with it. But she was taking too long to say anything. She made a show of chewing and wiped her mouth with her napkin, finally looking at him.
"Germany."
"Really?" His face showed surprise. "You don't sound German."
She dropped her eyes and hated every second of the lie. Even though she knew she had to be consistent, something in her wanted to never lie to this man, even if the lie was saving her ass, and maybe her life.
"I grew up in Ireland, moved to Germany as a teen. I never caught the German accent."
He leaned forward. "You don't sound Irish either. You don't speak with an accent at all. Well, except on certain words."
She smiled, hoping he couldn't see how fast her heart was beating. "Good. I try hard not to speak with an accent."
"Is that why you speak slowly?"
She smiled. It was. "Yes."
"I love the way you speak. The thoughtfulness with which you choose your words. And how they sound every once in a while when I can hear a slight accent."
Eme just stared at him. No man had ever said anything so heartfelt to her before. No man had ever paid that much attention to her, as a person before.
He took another bite of his chicken tagine, his eyes heavy on her. She dropped her gaze first, not sure what to think.
"How long have you been in America?"
"Almost two years."
"Why did you move here?"
Eme took another bite of her food so she didn't have to answer right away. He was going to keep asking her questions about herself, she could tell, and she hated it. She would have loved it though, if she could have told him the truth. The attention made her light up from the inside out. It made her feel special.
"I, ah, I always wanted to live in America. In San Francisco especially." She smiled because that was true.
Before he could ask another question, she asked him a few, focusing on his family, his likes and dislikes, and why he became a firefighter. They talked for an hour, shared a desert, and Eme felt sad when the waiter brought them their check. She tried to take it, but Bronx was quicker.
"I would have paid, you know," she told him, a teasing note in her voice, her hands on the table playing with her napkin. The one thing the night had been missing was jokes. She had expected a dozen, but he hadn't joked once.
"You can pay next time if you want, but I hope you'll let me pay again," he said. He handed a credit card to the waiter and turned back to her, his hand dropping down and covering hers, his face soft. "I really like you Eme, and I'd buy a hundred people dinner if I could just take you out again."
Eme swallowed hard, feeling like she was in trouble with this one.
Big trouble. Life-altering, soul-losing trouble.
But all she could do was stare at him and return his smile, already lost.
***
Bronx
Bronx drove her home, parking at a paid lot a block from her apartment over her protests. She'd gone pensive after dinner, and although they'd taken a walk, she didn't want to do anything else that evening, saying she was beat after a long week. He could understand that.
"Look," he said, after he had his truck in a parking stall. "I'm not going to try to come in. But I don't want to shove you out on the sidewalk with no goodbye while cars honk at us, and I really don't want to wonder if you made it home safe. Please, just let me see you into your place and listen to you lock the door. It would mean a lot to me." She stared at him in the dim light for a long time, then nodded. He got out of the truck and met her at the back, taking her hand as they walked up the block together, leaning into the incline.
He thrilled that she didn't pull away from him. She needed slow. Something about her told him that. She needed slow, she needed easy, she needed feather-light touches and no big moves, but she also needed to know how he felt about her.
"This is me," she said, indicating an unassuming tan building sandwiched in between a dozen others just like it, the windows stretching up to the sky.
He let her hand go while she pushed her key in the lock and looked back at him. "I'm on the third floor. No elevator," she said apologetically.
"People live longer when they take the stairs every day," he said with a wink, as they started up the first riser.
"Really?"
"Yep. I read it on the Internet, so that means it has to be true."
She laughed lightly and they made their way up to the third floor.
Did he really promise her he wouldn't try to come in? God he wanted to. But the minute the thought went through his head, he felt a stirring behind his zipper. He shifted his thoughts, disgusted with himself. Nice one Rosesson. Way to take it slow. He didn't care about the sex. He could get sex anywhere. Not that he didn't want to have sex with her. But he wanted so much more than that. For the first time in his life he found himself wanting the whole thing. The comm
itment. The dating. The steady girl he got to call every morning and go out with every night. What Knox and Talon had.
She stepped onto the last riser and turned right down the hallway, stopping at the first door. He could feel her anxiety, see it in the hand that reached up to the necklace around her neck.
She fumbled with her lock. "Thank you for dinner," she said, and pushed inside the door, turning and closing so that just her face was visible. She gave him a smile that hurt his heart. "Really," she said. "I mean it. I had a wonderful time."
He'd planned on kissing her.
But that wasn't going to happen. She'd made sure of it.
Chapter 21
Eme
The sheets twisted around her legs on her tiny bed as she flopped around. She'd barely slept at all the night before, playing over every second of her date with Bronx Rosesson. And then her stupefyingly embarrassing exit, where she'd pushed inside her door and peeked out like he was some guy trying to push pamphlets on her, or sell her a vacuum.
She'd think about Bronx and his smile and his sweet disposition and heat would flood through her, making her think about what his naked chest looked like, and what it would be like to kiss him. Then she would remember shoving in the door and leaving him in the hallway and hot, brutal embarrassment would make her want to lock herself in her house for a year and never see him again. God, she hated herself for it. But it was good, actually. Maybe he would think she was an idiot and write her off, not try to take her out again. That would be so much safer for her. So much less complicated.
She tried to imagine any scenario where this would all work out. Couldn't.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, realizing she had nothing to do and all weekend to do it when her buzzer next to the door buzzed. She got up in her boy shorts and tank and ran to it, half-terrified, half-delighted to think it was Bronx.
"Yes?"
"Flower delivery."
Eme stared at the buzzer as if she had never seen it before. Flower delivery?
"You there?" the irritated male voice asked.
"Ah yeah, hold on."
She slipped her feet into a pair of slippers and grabbed her keys, then ran out the door and down the steps quickly.
She could see him at the front door. Wearing a blue delivery uniform. A monster bouquet in his hands. They had to be from Bronx.
She opened the door and the man looked at her. "You Emerald Avalon?"
"Yeah."
"Sign here."
She scribbled her name on the clipboard, her eyes roaming over the flowers and the gorgeous green vase. She handed it back and suddenly her arms were full of flowers. She walked slowly back up the stairs, her mind stunned, her nose full of their lovely floral scent.
Back in her apartment, Eme put the vase down on her tiny table and backed up so she could see it all at once. It was the most beautiful arrangement she'd ever seen. Delicate yellow and white roses balanced with larger white flowers she couldn't identify, plus green chrysanthemums. At the bottom, broad fern leaves gave a pleasant base to the display, and the gorgeous jade-green vase made the whole thing pop. She couldn't stop staring at it.
She pulled the card out of the middle of the arrangement and read that the name of it was Emerald Elegance Bouquet. She bit her lip and tried to remember to breathe. She felt like crying.
She carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the little card.
I forgot to ask you for your phone number. Here's mine. I would love to hear from you soon. -Bronx
Eme stared at the card and then the bouquet for a long time, something shifting inside her, asking her if she dared but also asking her how she could possibly not dare. Choosing to not take this chance with this man felt like choosing to die inside, or handing over half of her soul to the shredder.
An hour later, she was still standing in the same spot, the tiny paper card clutched in her fist.
Chapter 22
Eme
Monday morning when Eme woke up she was still a woman at war with herself. She stopped the inner questions long enough to cock her head and try to figure out what that noise was. Her phone buzzed madly on her table, next to the gorgeous flowers. She ran to it, fear building in her chest. Only work and her mother had that phone number. But her mom wasn't supposed to call till tomorrow and no one had ever called her from work.
She snatched the phone up and punched the answer button.
"Hello?"
"Sweetheart, hello, I couldn't wait till tomorrow. I had to talk to you."
Eme sagged into a chair. "Mom. Is anything wrong?"
"No, no. I just wanted to hear your voice."
Eme nodded into the empty room and blew out a breath as her mother paused. She'd wanted to call her too over her long and empty weekend, but she hadn't, not wanting to make her mother worry. Her mom had always been able to read her and would have sensed something was wrong. "It's cool, Mom, what's going on with you?"
"Oh you know, boring life stuff. The ladies at the library invited me to Bingo on Friday. I think I'm entirely too young for Bingo, but I went, just to have someone to talk to. It was fun!"
Eme turned her head into the phone and pursed her lips. There was something her mother wasn't saying. "Fun?"
"Yes, fun." She hesitated, then spoke in a rush. "I met someone."
Eme stared at her flowers, then reached out to touch one. Me too, she thought. But she didn't want to tell her mother that. For so many reasons. "Like a man, mom?"
"Yes, of course. A nice man. You would like him. He has a poodle."
Eme didn't say anything at all, even after she was done shaking her head over the random poodle comment. She never thought her mother would start dating again. Guilt and sadness swirled around her, replacing confusion and indecision for the first time all weekend.
"Sweetheart." Her mom's voice dropped low. "Your daddy's been gone for over four years now. I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone."
"Mom, are you still going to come to America?"
"Oh," her mom said, like she hadn't even considered it, or thought about it. "Y-yes. I am. Of course. I just wanted to tell you I had a nice dinner with a nice man, but just a friend, and then I wanted to see how your weekend was."
Eme looked at the phone, then put it back to her ear. Neither her or her mother could afford to get the papers her mother would need to immigrate to America under a fictitious name, and Dusan might have a watch set up for her mother's real name. Using a fake name to get into the country was dangerous, dangerous business but Eme had been willing to do it because she was desperate, and even ending up in an American prison was better than waiting around Europe for Dusan to find her. America was the one place she could think of that Dusan didn't have any real diplomatic pull in. And he would never think she could have made it there by herself.
The plan had always been for her mother to follow, someday. But now Eme wondered if that was fair to her mother. America had never been her mother's dream.
"Julijana, are you there?"
"Eme, mom, it's Eme."
"Yes, of course, Eme. Sorry." Her mother's voice went formal. "So sweetheart, tell me, what did you do this weekend?"
"Ah, just worked, Mom. I worked all weekend." Here she was, lying to her mother now. But if she told the truth, that she'd done nothing but argue with herself and nap and eat, her mother would worry herself sick.
"Mom, I gotta go. I'm late for work. Call me back tomorrow, ok?"
"Yes, bokkie, don't work too hard. I love you."
Eme stiffened at the endearment that was neither Irish, nor German, realizing that bringing her mother here would surely complicate her life more. "I love you, too, Mom."
She took one last look at the lovely vase of flowers, her chest aching that she hadn't called Bronx all weekend, and hurried into her bathroom to get ready for work.
Twenty minutes later, Eme stepped out onto her street and ran to catch the bus so she would be on time to work. She didn't have a car, squirre
ling away all her extra money in savings, or sending it to her mother. Her mother had always lived in relative luxury, and being on her own in a strange country with only a librarian's salary was hard on her.
As she stood on the corner of Pacifica and Taylor to watch for the bus, she felt a strange sensation that made her legs want to weaken. She looked around, her eyes passing over the dozens of other people on the sidewalk, all intent on their own destinations, none of them paying attention to her.
She shook her head and stared down the street, seeing a bus in the distance, hoping it was hers and she hadn't already missed it, but the feeling persisted. Her skin crawled like someone was watching her. She turned again, looking intently in the coffee shop on the corner, then checking the cars parked on the street, even looking up into the windows of nearby apartments and buildings that stretched high into the air above her. She didn't see anyone watching her. But this was the tenderloin. There were people everywhere.
A bus pulled up in front of her and, thank goodness for small favors, it was hers. She climbed on and sat down, and forgot about the strange feeling immediately, as her old friends, guilt and indecision sat on the seat next to her and began throwing their weight around. Fun times.
The bus dropped her a quarter of a mile from the fire department administration building. She got out to walk and almost immediately the skin on the back of her neck prickled. The feeling was back. She quickened her pace, jerking her head around, trying to see all sides of the street at once. Traffic passed her. People passed her. The day seemed sane and ordinary.
Except for the sudden terror she felt.
As she followed the sidewalk into the department parking lot, the feeling eased a bit, letting her tense muscles relax. By the time she was in her office, she'd almost forgotten it had happened.
***
Eme
At lunchtime, Eme sequestered herself in her office and ate her turkey, apple, and mayo wrap, staring at the phone in her hand and the card on the desk in front of her.
She was an idiot. She was asking for trouble. And she still couldn't stop herself. Didn't want to stop herself.