by Fox, Susan
I took tonight’s offer as an encouraging sign.
He really was a considerate man. Earlier this evening, I’d looked forward to being alone with him. But now what I needed most was to be by myself, to deal with not only my aching head but my disturbing feelings. “That’s sweet of you, but not tonight, Richard. I’m not fit for company. And Pogo’ll be okay. Mr. Schultz will have taken him on a nice long ramble.” My elderly neighbor was a godsend, walking my dog whenever I couldn’t. He said it relieved the boredom of retirement, and ensured he got his own exercise.
Cars lined the street in front of my apartment, so Richard double-parked, then walked me to the door. “Take good care of yourself,” he murmured as he bent to kiss me.
His lips were gentle, almost brotherly, and suddenly I was tired of him being considerate. I grabbed his butt and pulled him closer, needing a passionate kiss to block out all thought of his father. He responded eagerly and, through his tux pants, I felt him harden. I pressed against him, but as my arousal increased, so did the pain in my head.
I broke away. “Sorry. Ouch, my head’s getting worse.”
He gave a resigned groan and straightened his glasses, which I’d knocked askew. “And I’m double-parked. Time to call it a night. Phone me in the morning?”
“I will. Love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you, too. Thanks for coming. Feel better, all right?”
When I unlocked my apartment door, I got the usual greeting. Pogo skittered up to me, my parrot Owl called “‘Bout time you made it home, cutie,” and Alice, my white Persian, sauntered into the galley kitchen and gazed up at me dreamily out of her startling blue eyes. I’d named her after Alice in Wonderland, because she lived in a mysterious world of her own.
After bestowing strokes, I dispensed food and refilled water dishes, then left the kitchen so Peek-a-boo would feel safe to emerge. The most recent addition to my menagerie, the young tabby had been seriously abused and I’d yet to convince him a human existed who could be trusted.
Wondering about Pussywillow, I checked my watch. Martin hadn’t called my cell, so the cat must be all right. Still, I’d rather know for sure. Chances were, Martin would still be awake, studying some heavy textbook.
When he answered the clinic phone, he confirmed he was with our patient, studying. He reassured me she was doing fine.
“Great. I’m home, so if anything happens, give me a call.”
Now I could truly relax. I stood in the middle of my precious domain and took several deep, cleansing breaths, feeling the peace seep into me.
My apartment was less than 400 square feet, with the one main room serving as dining room, living room, and bedroom. My best friend Janice and I loved browsing garage sales and secondhand stores, and each piece of furniture evoked a pleasant memory. Stuffed and ceramic animals peeped through the leaves of trailing plants, sharing shelf space with my collection of used books. The art on the walls consisted of—what else?—animal posters and drawings done by children like Sue Tran.
I loved every single thing about my tiny home.
Now I pulled out the hide-a-bed, transforming my couch into a sheet-clad double bed, and added the pillows and duvet I kept stored in a wicker hamper. Alice sauntered over, sniffed the edge of the duvet, then deigned to leap up and settle on my pillow.
From the stack of CDs by the miniature home entertainment unit, I chose an old Enya album, and turned the volume up just loud enough so that I’d hear it in the bathroom. And then, the mood set in my queendom, I went to relax in the tub, headache balm soaking into my temples as Enya sang hauntingly about love. Losing love, finding love…
The music was soothing, the bath lovely and hot. Was there something wrong with me, that I’d rather be alone in a hot bath tonight than heating up the sheets with Richard?
Was there something wrong with Richard and I, that we didn’t do crazy, sexy things? That we’d never taken a romantic weekend?
My parents were the wild ones. Even after more than thirty-five years together, they went for midnight picnics where, I was dead sure, they made love naked under the stars.
It’d be uncomfortable and maybe even dangerous, I told myself. Sex should be comfortable, cozy, relaxed. Though… Was it kind of boring and middle-aged to only make love in bed, at night or first thing in the morning, as was Richard’s and my pattern?
I thrashed restlessly in the tub. Honestly, if someone who didn’t know us heard a description of both couples, they’d undoubtedly say Grace and Jimmy Lee were the young lovers and Richard and I the long established partners.
Well, each couple was different. Grace and Jimmy Lee were … hot. They had a special chemistry, and it involved a potent sexual spark. I’d finally, almost, gotten over being embarrassed about it. In fact, I now thought it was kind of cute.
Maybe I even envied their chemistry. But comfortable and cozy was Richard’s and my style, perhaps because we were inherently conservative people. Unlike my parents. And his father. Conservative was not the word to describe Gabriel DeLuca. Now that man was hot. Hot enough to make me squirm, damn him. Annoyed, I pulled the plug and stood up as the water drained.
Fine, he was hot. That must be a real bonus for whoever he was sleeping with. A man as sexy as that would definitely be sleeping with someone. It would be such a waste if he weren’t.
I scrubbed a towel roughly across my skin. Gabriel’s sex life was completely irrelevant to me.
As for Richard and I, maybe we’d get a little wilder and more spontaneous as our love matured. We’d known each other only a year and likely we needed the security of being married, and devoted to building a future together, before we lost our inhibitions. Yes, our fire was a nice steady one that would only grow warmer over the years.
That was the kind of heat I wanted. Not something as shallow as feeling sparks for a stranger across a crowded room.
Chapter 3
Sunday I woke, after a restless night filled with images of panthers, chocolates, and Gabriel DeLuca, with the nagging remnants of last night’s headache. Richard and I chatted on the phone, firming up plans to meet for dinner. I had the day off, but he was already at the office.
Feeling the need for fresh air, exercise, and easy company, I then rang my oldest and best friend. “Want to walk the seawall with Pogo and me?”
“I’m still in bed,” Janice grumbled.
“Alone?” I asked cautiously. She’d been dateless for the last few months, but had been developing a serious prospect.
“Unfortunately.”
“Then get up. A walk will do you good.”
Her response was a loud groan, then the phone clicked off. Laughing, I donned black leggings, a long coral-colored jersey, and walking shoes as Pogo danced around my legs in a frenzy of anticipation.
Stepping out the front door, I sucked in a long breath of spring air. The sky was cloudless, the sun weak but already cutting through the morning chill. The air was rich with the spicy scent of flowering cherry trees and the boulevards were covered with the pink snow of their blossoms. By the time Pogo and I had walked the few blocks to Jan’s apartment, my headache was gone. I buzzed and she answered, “Izzie? You’re really here?”
“Get your butt downstairs.”
“Yeah, yeah.” But she appeared almost immediately, tiny compared to me, clad in skin-tight jeans, a long-sleeved indigo tee, and turquoise Skechers. Either she was trying out a new hairstyle or she hadn’t combed her shoulder-length black hair since she got out of bed.
She bent to stroke Pogo, then straightened. “Coffee. Give me coffee.”
The rest of the West End had the same idea. The outside tables at the coffee shops were filled with folks sipping, chatting, reading the paper, and people-watching. Pogo and I paused to greet a Schnauzer named Poppin and his human, Martina. Janice waved a languid hand at a couple of teenaged girls.
“I don’t get any privacy,” she grumbled, “living and working in the same community.” She taught sciences at King George
, the local secondary school. “Don’t know why they’re giggling, though.”
“Uh, your hairstyle’s a little unconventional.”
She raised a quick hand to her head. “Oops, forgot to brush it. Got a comb on you?”
“Nope, just cash and poop-and-scoop bags.”
She finger-combed her hair as we stood in line for coffee. We ordered take-out lattés—mine decaf and hers with an extra shot of espresso—then headed down to English Bay.
The swathes of lawn were bright spring green and the beach had been manicured, with huge, smooth-skinned logs placed at even intervals. People sprawled on the sand, perched on logs, and hogged the benches along the side of the seawall walk. The air smelled of seaweed, sunscreen, and coffee.
Janice tugged my arm and pointed toward a bench. “Those people look like they’re leaving.”
Pogo yanked at his leash, pulling me in the other direction. “Stop it, you two. Pogo, take it easy, we’re coming. Jan, what part of ‘walk the seawall’ didn’t you understand?”
She gave a gigantic yawn, slugged back some coffee, and shook herself. “Yeah, yeah. Tell me again why we’re friends?”
“Because we were both freaks in grade one. You with your weird Chinese clothes and me with my funny hippie clothes.” She’d come in the cutest pink cheongsam style top, and I’d worn a tie-dyed tee with a peace symbol. Neither set of parents believed in shopping at Gap Kids.
I wrapped an arm around her in a quick hug. She hugged back, saying, “Okay, weird clothes and freaky parents are a good reason.”
Between lawn and beach, the seawall path was a colorful stream of people. We turned right, in the direction of Sunset Beach, and merged into the flow. “Bad night?” I asked.
“You know Jeremy, the teacher I’ve been having coffee with?”
“Sure.” Jeremy was her prospect. She’d spent a good part of the school year lusting after the guy—a new English teacher at King George—but all that had come of it was regular coffee dates after school. “Did you finally ask him out?”
“You know a sweet old-fashioned Chinese girl like me would never do that.”
Janice was indisputably Chinese-Canadian, on occasion sweet, and yes, she was a little conventional. It was another thing we had in common. In my case, it was rebellion against my parents, but Jan’s values were in line with her parents’. A part of her old-fashionedness was her reluctance to ask a man out. A reluctance that I, to my mother’s women’s lib chagrin, shared.
“So what happened?” I said. “Did he ask you out?”
“I thought he did.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Couldn’t you tell?”
“He caught up to me when I was leaving on Friday, and asked if I’d seen Romeo and Juliet. The play. It’s on at the Stanley.”
“Going to Romeo and Juliet? Of course that’s a date.”
She gave a pitiful moan.
“Wasn’t it a date?”
“Is it your idea of a date, Izzie, when you go for a drink after the play and your male companion spends the whole time enthusing about the actor who played Romeo?”
“Enthusing?”
“Over the first drink, he was saying how handsome this actor was. How sexy. Which he was, by the way, but all the same.”
“That sounds more like you and me talking.” I certainly couldn’t imagine those words coming out of Richard’s—or any straight guy’s—lips.
“Yeah, well, by the time he was finished the second drink he was whining about how he could never find a man like that.”
I stared at her. “Jan, how could you not know Jeremy’s gay?”
She knocked her cardboard cup against her forehead. “I don’t know! Because he’s closeted when he’s on coffee but out when he starts to drink? Because I’m a moron when it comes to men?”
“You’re not. Come on, woman, you live in the West End. You have fine-tuned radar for picking up on gayness.”
“My gay-dar was jammed. I just thought he was so damned attractive and interesting.”
Pogo had found a particularly fascinating bush to sniff, so Janice and I moved off the path and let him indulge.
“That’s rough,” I said. “But I guess you can still be friends?” I nudged her and snickered. “You can hang out in bars together and pick up men.”
She punched my arm. “Have pity. Not everyone’s lucky enough to find a perfect guy like Richard.”
We were at Sunset Beach now, and the seawall traffic had increased. Walkers and joggers had now been joined by roller-bladers, cyclists, and skateboarders. As we waited for Pogo, I idly watched the parade. “Richard is perfect, isn’t he?”
She nodded vigorously. “Handsome, successful, intelligent, and he’s really nice.”
“Considerate, sweet,” I added. Then I frowned, “Jan, do you think he’s, uh, hot?”
My question caught her mid sip. She choked and began to cough. When she could talk again, she rasped, “Hot? What are you talking about? He’s your fiancé. I’m not going to lust after your guy.”
“That’s not what I meant. Just … if you met him and he wasn’t my guy, or anyone else’s guy, would you think he was hot?”
“Hmm.” She took another sip, cleared her throat, sipped again. “He’s certainly attractive. But that hot thing is something different, and really personal. I mean, it kind of leaps out at you, like sparks or a weird kind of energy field.” She gave a surprised chuckle. “There were no sparks with Jeremy. Guess that should have told me something.”
If there were no sparks, you shouldn’t get serious about a man? No, I didn’t buy that for a moment. You had to be thoughtful about relationships, not impulsive, not ruled by pheromones. Besides, I wasn’t actually convinced that pheromones—sparks, as Janice said—truly existed. I’d never experienced any. Unless you counted that weird thing with Gabriel. An energy field, Jan had said. Yes, that was a good description.
Pogo tired of the bush and darted ahead, catching me off guard and yanking me in his wake, the two of us almost tripping a teenage girl and her boyfriend.
“Sorry!” I pulled back firmly on the leash, halting Pogo’s headlong dash as Janice trotted a few steps to catch up.
“Hey, you and Richard were going to that glitzy fundraiser last night, right? How was it?”
Gabriel, flashing his sexy smile. Stripping off his clothes.
“I met Richard’s father,” I said grimly.
“Wow! How did it go?”
She was my oldest friend in the world and we didn’t keep secrets. “I thought he was hot.”
“Well, shit.” Janice stopped dead, eliciting a curse from a man who’d been walking behind us and almost crashed into her. “Really?” She yanked me off the path and I in turn tugged Pogo along with us. Jan’s eyes, the color of black coffee, peered up at me, wide and demanding.
“God, Janice, you should have seen him.” Unwilling to face her sharp-eyed scrutiny, I pulled her back on the path and we began walking again as I described Gabriel.
When I finished, she said, “Oh yeah, he definitely sounds hot. Isn’t that wild, that Richard’s father would be hot? I mean, he’s got to be your parents’ age. And while I love Jimmy Lee to pieces, I wouldn’t call him hot.”
“Grace would. And no, Gabriel’s not that old. Around forty-five, I think. Besides, I don’t think hot has to do with age. Like you said, it’s a personal thing, a state of mind. Or body,” I added grimly, thinking that my attraction to Gabriel had absolutely nothing to do with reason or sanity.
“And your personal state of body says Richard’s dad is hot. That’ll make family dinners a little strange. Though from what you’ve said, Richard hardly ever sees him, eh?”
“True.”
I finished my coffee and dumped the cup in a garbage bin. Of course Janice was right. Family dinners would be with Diane and Frank, not Richard’s father. Gabriel might come to the wedding, then I’d probably never see him again. What a relief. Except, I didn’t feel relieved so much as … sad.
For Richard, for Gabriel, and maybe for myself.
Wanting to change the subject, I remembered something I’d been going to ask her. “Jan, have you ever thought of doing private tutoring? For an adult?”
“You need a brush-up?” she kidded.
“Sure hope not. You’ve heard me mention our veterinary assistant, Martin Swallow? And how well he’s working out? He’s starting university in September, concentrating on sciences and planning to be a vet. His academic background isn’t strong and he wants to study ahead of time. He got the textbooks for his fall courses, but they’re heavy going. Martin could use a tutor.”
She was nodding. “He’s a good guy, a hard worker?”
“And nice. He loves animals and he’s bright but he had, uh, a disadvantaged childhood and adolescence.” It would violate Martin’s privacy to tell her the details. “He learns differently than most people. He’s more intuitive than intellectual.”
“More like you than me. Been there, done that.” She grinned. “Worked out okay for us, didn’t it? Sure, tell him to give me a call. We could get together for a coffee, see if we hit it off.”
“Hit it off, over coffee? You sure you want to go that route after what happened with Jeremy?” I teased.
She dug a pointy elbow into my ribs. “Gimme a break.” Then, suspiciously, “So is Martin gay?”
I laughed. “No, but would it make a difference?”
“Of course not. He’s a kid, right? It’s not like I’m going to be interested in him.”
“He’s twenty-one, but mature. He’s survived more shit than most of us will ever experience. I respect him.”
“Tell me you’re not match-making.”
Laughing, I relented. “No, I’m definitely not. You’re right, there’s a six year age difference and the two of you probably have nothing in common.” It was time to change the subject again. “Tell me about the play. I gather it’s worth going, just to look at Romeo?”