Mixtape: A Love Song Anthology
Page 22
“I owe you so much,” she whispered, the tears still flowed forth, making her nose run.
“Are you happy, Marilyn?” he asked.
She was a liar and a traitor, the worst kind of thief, a lowly manipulator to boot, and she should never be forgiven for her hurtful mistakes. She hated herself, but she loved Ove Dexter more. He was not a mistake.
“He is all of the good and all of the love in this great world wrapped up into a tiny, curious, and wondrous package. I couldn’t be happier, Dallas,” she whispered gratefully. She liked saying his true name and the crystalline way it fell from her lips. “Thank you. So much.”
He smiled at her then, that exuberant, thrilling grin. She smiled back through the tears as her anxiety and greatest fears were somehow laid to rest at the top of the ride. She came back down to earth a new woman, fearless, forgiven, and rectified.
Ove and Ove Dexter were waiting for her hand-in-hand down below. Ove Dexter looked curiously at the man who leapt out of the carriage, waved, and then looked back fondly at his mother.
“Just one question before I go,” Dallas lingered with his hand on the hinged door.
“Anything. Ask me.” He wanted to know little Ove’s favorite food, color, or sport. If he slept well and what scared him in the night.
“You fuck him like we did?” he asked, eyeing Marilyn’s mature, but sweet husband.
“That would be a no,” she said, blushing as Dallas helped her out of the pink chipped chariot.
“Put him in an early grave, I’d suspect. I’ve never been able to achieve, or um, well, replicate should we say—”
“Me either. It was a singular experience. Thank you again.”
“Take care. Of the boy and yourself.” He went to shake hands and then doubt shadowed across his face. Marilyn thought he was possibly coming in for a hug. But instead, he saluted, first Marilyn and then her family.
Ove Dexter saluted back, and Marilyn began to cry again.
Dallas jogged off in the opposite direction and quickly disappeared into the crowd.
The twinkling lights began to fade in the distance as they made their way back to the car. Ove looked at her with curiosity burning brightly in his gaze. Marilyn shook her head and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
The soothing rhythm of the drive put the boy to sleep. Ove pulled him from the car seat and lay him sweetly over his shoulder as he carefully picked his way over the flagstones that led to their front door.
Marilyn flicked on the light in the entryway of their cozy Cape Cod home and Ove passed the slumbering boy into her waiting arms.
“Was he the father?” Ove whispered as he handed over the child. The look on his face was free of rancor, and Marilyn felt great love bloom anew in the crimson depths of her heart.
“You are his father, Ove.”
“You know what I mean.”
She searched his eyes for any sign of hurt. Betrayal cut like a scalpel—effortless in slicing through, but difficult to understand exactly how deep the wound reached.
“Yes,” she said carefully. She didn’t know what the admission would do to her family—her entire life.
In the end, it turned out truth was a potent elixir that only served to set her free from her lies.
* * *
Twelve years would come to pass before she’d see Dallas Decker again. Five years after Ove Sr. had passed from congestive heart failure asleep in their bed. The loss was devastating to both her and the child. But she was still happy, albeit sometimes lonely. She found great joy in her painting and in raising Ove Dexter, who was rapidly sprinting his way to manhood.
Adolescence hadn’t yet marred his soul with irony, or indifference. The young man remained passionate about the environment, and still dreamed of sunken shipwrecks. He read his father’s dusty journals and had early acceptance to Yale. He knew by heart the story of how his mother had seduced a stranded and unsuspecting hitchhiker to conceive him. He found it troublesome, and at the same time, extraordinary. It was an epic origin story he sometimes shared with close friends when they were sneaking beers, or the hard-to-come-by joint.
His mother was herself epic too and did nothing without flare. She’d worked her way to becoming one of the foremost American landscape painters of her generation. She sold works that could easily put him through college.
The two of them were anomalistic in their closeness, preferring the quiet company of one another over that of strangers, acquaintances, or even friends. He still perched on a stool by her easel and studied while she painted.
Ove Dexter had chosen, after careful deliberation, to spend the last summer before college with his biological father in Canada. But when Marilyn called him to come up with a plan, they’d mutually decided that it would convenience them all for Dallas to travel to the island for the summer instead. That way the boy could still see friends and his mother wouldn’t miss out on what could possibly be their very last summer together.
Marilyn and Ove Dexter, both plagued by overwrought nerves, met Dallas at the ferry. He stepped off the boat, pulling a small suitcase, his hair blowing in the wind. Hair which had greyed nicely and his face had acquired a few deep lines with time, that if anything, only served to make him more ruggedly handsome. He was fit and agile and strode toward them with confidence.
“Holy shit, I look exactly like him,” Ove Dexter said to his mother. They exchanged an exuberant smile and squeezed one another’s hand.
He approached with a sunny happiness lighting up his face, his emerald eyes shining and looking at the two of them expectantly.
“Hugs or handshakes?” he asked them warmly.
Ove Dexter threw his arms around Dallas who bear-hugged him back, tightly clapping him on the back with genuine affection. When they pulled back, both men were crying. Marilyn lifted her hand to her face and swiped at the spill of tears.
Dallas squeezed Ove Dexter’s shoulders. “I can’t wait to finally get to know you,” he told the young man earnestly.
He looked at Marilyn, who held both hands to her mouth, trying to hold back an onslaught of emotion. She couldn’t help but scan his finger for a ring. She felt absurdly possessive, like Dallas belonged to her—to them both—like he was part of their family.
Seagulls cried overhead and the deep fog horn of the ferry sounded announcing its departure.
He pulled her hands from her face and held them in his, still standing apart and taking her in.
“As stunning as the day I met you,” he said. “But the real question is, are you happy?”
Marilyn nodded and experienced the gratification of being wrapped up in Dallas’ arms once again. She had no idea what would come, although she was positive she both adored and fully trusted this man.
Please, Decker, I’ll do anything you want me to.
They walked away, the three of them automatically a tight unit, Dallas with an arm flung over each one of their shoulders.
The two men were already discussing a boating excursion to see the local sights. Their voices similar, and their feisty laughs, nearly indistinguishable from the other.
She’d loved Ove, she had, with all of her heart. And Ove Dexter was the very best part of her life. But this reunion, was one she had dreamed of.
The gift of a stranger had given her a lifetime of incalculable happiness.
* * *
Epilogue
They often spent the morning lying in bed until the sun traveled its way across the room and wrapped them in sharp golden light, heating up their limbs to the point of escape and voluntary expulsion from the nest.
She liked to stare into his handsome face and contemplate fate, and think about the ever-changing ocean surface and what next to paint.
Ove Dexter left for college and Dallas had stayed.
“Remember how I told you I was married for four years?” Dallas asked her. He took her paint spotted hand and held it in his. “We tried to conceive the enti
re time, until it took its toll and drove us apart.”
“I’m sorry,” Marilyn told him. She’d been there before, could remember exactly what that kind of cavernous emptiness felt like. The hunger it bred and the resulting drive that could propel one into near madness.
“Here’s the strange part. When we finally gave in and went to see a specialist, they told me it was my count that was low and Hannah was perfectly fertile.”
He smiled at Marilyn, lit up with both the invading sunshine and the high of sharing his secret.
“Are you saying you and I make miracles together?”
“Well, let’s just say I think that night was supposed to happen. The rain, the car, you striking out at the bar. I never forgot you. And I was always grateful to you for stopping.”
Marilyn remembered the first moment she saw him standing in the rain, and pondered the possibility that the universe had conspired to bring them together—that the fateful encounter from one night could set the supernal course to navigate them into each other’s arms—or maybe Dallas, her fated lover, was just one lucky sonofabitch.
♬
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Toothpaste Kisses
Xio Axelrod
“Toothpaste Kisses” – The Maccabees
CHAPTER ONE
For Malcolm Zaha, the worst part about starting over was the silence. Sitting in his brand-new office, behind his brand-new desk, in his brand-new Herman Miller office chair, Mal had never felt more alone.
At the Law Offices of Cohn and Zaha, solitude had been a rarity, regardless of the hour. During the day, the practice had bustled with junior attorneys, paralegals, and interns, plus the administrative staff. Mal and his partner – former partner – Joshua Cohn, had built the firm up from nothing.
Rather than line someone else’s pockets, they’d gone against all sense and reason and started their own practice. Just two twenty-something, know-nothings and, God, they’d been so naïve. Maybe their naïveté had worked in their favor because it wasn’t all that difficult for them to find clients and build Cohn and Zaha into something respectable and respected.
They carved out a niche, representing start-up and mid-sized businesses. Everything from construction and local furniture chains, to food suppliers and pizza franchises. It had been good business, but Mal had always felt he and Josh could do more.
Mal wanted to work with Philadelphia’s creatives, and there were so many. Artists, musicians, and craftspeople, as expected, but also theaters, recording studios, dance companies, and the like. He believed, had Cohn and Zaha opened their doors to the community, the community would have treated them well. Philadelphia may have had a reputation for unruly sports fans and gastronomically challenging fast food, but there was so much more to the city, and Mal longed to shine a light on its creative brilliance.
At least he had.
Now he wondered if he should leave the area and start fresh somewhere new. A clean slate in a new city, where no one knew him, was an almost irresistible siren song. Cohn and Zaha had built their reputation as the firm who’d scored Philly’s brightest rising businesses. Now, Mal was left with a bare bones staff and only a handful of smallish clients from their partnership.
Partnership.
That word encompassed so much for Mal. Late night debates with Josh over strategies for their clients, and all-night marathons full of sex, booze, and more sex, sometimes until they were both too sore to walk the next day. Whatever else went wrong with their relationship, the chemistry between them had always been spectacular. It was one reason Mal had hung on for so long. Josh used sex to solve their problems, and it had worked until it didn’t work anymore.
“Knock, knock.”
Mal looked up to find Evelyn Magill, in all her five-foot-five-inch, redheaded glory, standing in his doorway. Mal tried to smile for her but failed. Change sucked.
“Hey, Ev.”
Evelyn’s brows drew together as she stepped into the room. This time, the silence also held the weight of her pity, and pity was the last thing Mal wanted from any-fucking-body, particularly from his right hand. He wanted to scream at her to get the hell out and leave him to stew in his own juices. But Mal couldn’t lash out at Evelyn. She was all he had left.
To Mal’s surprise, she didn’t launch into a monologue of empathy. Instead, she cleared her throat and tossed a thick folder onto his desk.
“Choose.”
Her tone was sharp, her eyes assessing him. When Mal dared to glance up at her lovely, heart-shaped face, the pity he thought he’d seen in her expression was gone.
Mal spun the folder around and opened it. Dozens of color copies fanned out with the movement, photo after photo of paintings, vases, lamps, and various other objets d’art. Mal rolled his eyes.
“I told you, I don’t give a fuck.” He glared at Evelyn but, as usual, she merely waited for his temper to cool. “Do we really need to fill the place with junk? I fucking hated how Josh felt the need to cover every available surface with knickknacks.”
“Junk?” Evelyn raised one dark eyebrow. “The Mal I know would never call his precious Van Der Rohe tables junk. Moreover, I don’t expect you to pick out every vase and lamp, I know your taste well enough, but there are a few key pieces you will need to choose. We need to furnish this place, and I’m not going to do it all for you just because you’re too busy sulking.”
Mal ignored the jab. Malcolm Zaha never sulked, goddammit.
“Why the fuck not?” Mal was aware of his petulant tone but wasn’t in the mood to care. And he knew Evelyn wouldn’t put up with it. She never indulged him for long. “What am I paying you for?”
“You’re not.” She stated, reminding Mal he had won no new clients for his new solo practice.
Josh had kept nearly all their old accounts, leaving Mal not only without a partner and a place to live, but also without an adequate source of income, for him or for his beloved Evelyn. Anyone would think Mal had been the one who’d fucked up their relationship. If he hadn’t been notoriously anal about squirreling away money in a separate account, he would have been in dire straits after the breakup. As it stood, he’d dipped into his nest egg to get this new practice up and running, or at least secure a decent office for it.
An office that was cavernously empty. Maybe Evelyn had a point.
Sufficiently chastised, Mal offered Evelyn a sheepish grin. “Have I told you how much I appreciate you sticking by my side through all of this?”
“Words are empty, Zaha.” Evelyn stood over the folder and shifted through the images. She stopped when she got to the ones at the bottom of the pile. “I need you to choose a piece for the foyer. Whatever you pick will set the tone. It’ll be the first thing clients see when they come through the door. Well, that and Quentin’s smiling face.”
Mal’s head snapped up. “Who the hell is Quentin?”
Evelyn shook her head, mumbling to herself as she formulated her response.
Mal wondered at the patience the woman had when dealing with him. He knew he’d been an asshole, especially over the last month.
“Quentin Cook is the new receptionist you signed off on last week.” Evelyn met Mal’s confused stare with another shake of her head. “The business student from Temple?”
“Oh. Right.” Mal had a vague recollection of a discussion they’d had regarding hiring for that position. Evelyn had seemed pleased with the guy’s résumé, and that had been enough for Mal. As long as the kid could answer the phones, handle the random walk-ins, and manage not to fuck anything up, he’d do fine.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I’m not going to pick that piece for you. It’s your business. It will represent you. It has to scream Malcolm Zaha when people walk in.”
Leaning back in his chair, Mal eyed her for a moment. “And what exactly does Malcolm Zaha say to you?�
��
She grinned. “Stop fishing for compliments.”
“I’m really not,” Mal assured her, genuinely curious.
Evelyn squared her shoulders and leveled her gaze on him. “Malcolm Zaha is tough, fearless, resourceful, charming-as-hell, and he knows how to cut through bullshit like no one I’ve ever known.”
Her smile was fierce, then it fell. She sat in the chair across from Mal and clasped her hands on the edge of the desk between them. Meeting his eyes, she continued, her voice soft.
“He’s also the best boss anyone could hope for, the best friend anyone could want, and the best man I know. Except for Pete.”
Mal held her earnest gaze and swallowed past the lump forming in his throat. “No one’s better than Pete.”
Evelyn’s smile returned, brighter than before. “My husband is a gem.”
“So are you, Ev.” They shared a quiet moment before the silence veered too close to sentimentality for Mal’s taste. He sat forward and thumbed through the prints again. “So, don’t let him forget it or I’ll have to remind him.”
Just about every style of modern art was represented in the selections, from Cubism to Impressionism to Pop. He recognized the Klimt and the Chagall, but there were also some contemporary pieces.
“Anything jumping out at you?” Mal couldn’t seem to organize his thoughts enough to really see anything.
Evelyn leaned closer. She reached for the pile and sifted through it, sliding out a few printouts for him to see.
“I knew you liked Modern, so I asked them to include some prints and repros. We can scale those to any size we want, but really—it would be a copy of a copy.”
Mal nodded. “You’re thinking original.”
“Yes,” Evelyn agreed, sliding out some papers from the bottom of the group. “More specifically, local artists. It is, after all, your brand.”
She handed Mal a few pieces to consider. They weren’t bad. The first one that grabbed him was by a man named Tim McFarlane. Mal thought he’d heard the name spoken in his dealings with the art crowd. The piece itself was abstract and nonrepresentational, yet it had an energy and focus that appealed to Mal. It wasn’t what he wanted for the office, but it would look great in his apartment. He set it aside.