Tunnel Vision

by H. R. Kitte-Rojas

  “In other words, you"re afraid of commitment. You dumped my sister because she said „ours" instead of „yours." That"s a bit extreme.”

  “I just find it hard to believe anything lasts forever,” he said. “And isn"t that what every couple assumes when they start arranging to carry out these bogus traditions?”

  “Where does that leave us?” Celeste asked, with a heavy, suffocating feeling.

  “I don"t know,” he said. “"Cause I think I might be in love with you.”

  Celeste stared at him, unsure what to say or think. Given his other revelation, she didn"t feel safe letting herself believe it.

  “When did you start feeling this way?” she asked.

  “After the opera,” he said. “Or maybe the seed was planted years ago, in that line at the cafeteria. I know that sounds stupid.”

  It didn"t sound stupid to her.

  “Frank, you"ve known a lot of women. Do you know how easy it is to hurt a woman…I mean down to her very soul…once you start telling her things like what you just said?”

  He bit his lip and shook his head. “I"ve never told anyone what I just said to you.”

  “You"ve never been in love before?” she asked.

  He shook his head, perplexed. “I didn"t know it could happen more than once. Hell, I wasn"t sure it would ever happen to me at all.”

  She studied his face and his intense hazel eyes and let his words sink in.

  “I"ve been infatuated before,” he said. “Plenty times.”

  “Frank, I can"t afford to let you play around with my heart.”

  “That"s not what I"m doing. I never want to hurt you.”

  “So many men say that,” she said. “But when push comes to shove, you do it anyway.”

  “So you"ve been in love before?” he asked.

  The question caught her off guard. I don"t know, she thought. From where I sit right now, I don’t think I ever truly was.

  Frank rose from the table and stepped around behind her, massaging her shoulders and neck.

  “I want to be with you, Celeste. I don"t know all that"s gonna mean down the road. And what scares me is, I don"t even want to think ahead to that. I just want to be with you. And I can"t bear the thought of you being with Larry or any other man besides me.”

  “You don"t have to worry about Larry,” she said, his sensuous massaging breaking down her defenses. Her head lolled to the side as he worked a tense knotout of her. “Larry is out of the picture.”

  “I hoped he was. Hoped you wouldn"t kiss me if you were still with him.”

  “We did a lot more than kiss,” she reminded him. “But I didn"t hear a peep of protest out of you; or remember any questions about if he was still my man.”

  “I didn"t want to bring him up,” he said. “And I didn"t want to give you any excuses to stop.”

  “You"re such a dog,” she said.

  “But I"m your dog.”

  “And you give great massages. Let"s go to the sofa. I"ll get the dishes later.

  On the sofa they faced each other, and she took his hands in hers.

  “My father left when I was just a toddler,” she said. “Another woman, from what my mother says. I never knew him. My mother raised me and Nikita alone. She"s a very angry woman. Still is.”

  Frank brought one of her hands up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

  “Recently, I"ve been learning she passed some of that onto me,” Celeste went on. “I"ve had issues with men, in general. Trust issues. When I left home, I was able to put all that behind me, at first. I just knew that in college I was going to start becoming the person I truly was. Not, you know, pushed into a box from all the expectations Mama had. And Nikita too, kind of. I was able to trust openly and make myself vulnerable. I really think you can"t have a good relationship unless you do that.”

  “Then along I came and jacked everything up,” he muttered, mouth forming a hard line.

  She reached up and caressed his cheek, jaw and neck. “I"m not telling you this so you"ll beat yourself up some more, Frank. I"ve been learning to forgive, lately. And I"ve forgiven you. It"s okay to forgive yourself.”

  “It"s a lot easier to do now that I found you again,” he said.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I don"t know what a stable family looks like, either. I"ve never had a happy marriage modeled for me. Ever since my last disaster, I"ve been telling myself that I was done looking for true love. I could do just fine without a man—for the rest of my life.”

  Frank nodded. “So you know where I"m coming from.”

  “But when I"m honest with myself,” she said, “deep down, I really want to try for that silly fairy tale. I want to believe I can find the man of my dreams and be with him forever.” She left out the part that it was the last several glorious days spent with him that prompted this realization.

  He let go of her hands and leaned back, a scary, flat look washing over his countenance. “So this is you, dumping me. So you can find that man of your dreams?”

  His pain and fear of losing her occurred to her in a rush. She went to him, threw her arms around him and smothered him with kisses. “No, baby. No, no, no. That"s not what I meant at all. I don"t want to let you go. I"m not going to. Okay? No, no, no.”

  Slowly, his arms went around her. Gradually, his embrace tightened.

  They held each other for a long time, without speaking. Then, she said, “We don"t have to figure it all out right now. We can work it out a day at a time.”

  He sighed, then grinned sheepishly. “I guess I still carry some of those insecurities around, huh? At least when itcomes to you. Sorry.”

  She scoffed. “You"re one of the cockiest, most self-assured smartasses I know.”

  “Not about you.”

  “I"m glad to have taught you some humility, then,” she said, chuckling, and pecked him on the lips. “But you don"t need to feel insecure. I love you.”

  The words were out before she thought them through. Well, there it was. Maybe it was premature to allow this vulnerability, but at some point she had to learn to trust again.

  “You mean that?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Wouldn"t say it if I didn"t mean it.”

  “I"ve heard that one before.”

  “Not from me, you haven"t. So forget about the other ones. Nothing up until me wasreal.”

  “Now who"s cocky?” he asked.

  23 As the end of Frank"s vacation neared, their lazy times together became all the more valuable. They limited their separation time to three hours a day, and Celeste brought her laptop over to his house to write while he worked out and edited his videos. It saved the time of driving between houses. Plus it was somehow comforting to know he was under the same roof while she wrote.

  Celeste loved being with Frank, but experienced a conflict of emotions—euphoria at his confession of love, but trepidation at his skittish attitude toward long-term commitment. She had been the one to suggest they just wait and see what developed, but evidently he was the only one capable of embracing that mindset. What if he got tired of her? What if she accidently used the phrase “our pool” or “our car” or “our house?” Would he freak out and bail on her?

  After a bout of especially inventive sex, Frank dozed in his bed one afternoon. Unable to nap with him this time, she played with his hair for a while, studying the face that had become so dear to her. She got up and slipped her nightie on to go wash her face and brush her teeth.

  When she emerged from the bathroom, she noticed an open doorway further down the hall. His weight room. It was bathed in light from a street lamp outside. There was a weight bench inside, and she saw several photographs on the wall—most in color, but some in black and white; most of them dry-mounted on white mattes.

  She had never been in there before, and entered for a better look. Evidently, Frank was a shutterbug before becoming a video producer. Some of the photos went way back, maybe into his childhood. There were landscapes, photos of animals, and people.
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  The people were subdivided, as far as she could tell. One grouping of photos featured Italian-looking folks who must be the heretofore missing family members. Some of these prints were old, and this collection included some of the least artistic photographs in the room—snapshots, really.

  Another grouping had mug shots of people of many shapes, sizes and colors, collected under a landscape of a high school building.

  The largest collection of people shots featured females, exclusively…except for some pictures obviously taken by someone else, because Frank was in them, with the women.

  His old girlfriends. He kept a record, of sorts.

  There were lots of them. And, she noticed, at least a third of them were black. Her gaze roamed over the glossy surfaces, then she froze, the most peculiar feeling roiling in her stomach.

  It became obvious, the more black faces she examined on the wall, that quite a few of them favored her.

  She snapped out of her shock, took a cautious glance down the hall, then went over the photos again. She compared the short, ramping noses, the small mouths with lips only a shade more red than the warm brown complexions, the eyes that shone so brightly, even when half-covered by lazy lids. Celeste never could have guessed there were so many girls who looked like her. Apparently Frank had found every last one of them.

  Including Celeste.

  Twice.

  A color photo of Nikita, sunning by his pool, was laying on the floor. He hadn"t mounted it yet, but her sister was part of the gallery, just the same.

  Celeste made her way to the front vestibule, dug some Jolly Ranchers out of her purse and went to sit on the couch in the living room. This was a lot to take in and she wasn"t sure what to make of it at this point.

  This was a little weird. It was weird enough before seeing Nikita"s image ready to be mounted under the rest of them. If she had seen her own photo at the bottom of that gallery, she would really be freaked out.

  Then something Nikita said came back to her: “He"s been looking for me his whole life.”

  Nikita had been inside the weight room.

  She had seen the pictures; noticed the pattern in the gallery of old girlfriends.

  Frank hadn"t been looking for Nikita, or any of the women in those pictures. He"d been looking for the woman they reminded him of.

  He"d been trying to find Celeste again.

  Yeah, it was a bit obsessive. But then she considered her own exes—the ones who reminded her of Jermaine.

  Celeste had spent a large chunk of her life searching for the one she hadn"t really wanted in the first place; while Frank had spent the same period searching for the one he truly did.

  Frank staggered out of his bedroom into the hall, rubbing his eyes. He had put his boxers on, but nothing else. She indulged herself in ogling his chest and abs.When he saw her, he said, “I"m sorry I fell asleep on you.”

  “That"s right,” she said. “It"s only acceptable if I fall asleep, too.”

  “You"ve got rules for everything, don"t you?” He plopped down, across the length of the couch from her, back against the arm rest.

  “That"s right. You"d better start learning them, too.” She stretched out her legs and scootched down until her feet were in his lap. He grinned sleepily and began to massage them.

  “Rule number 583,” he said. “When baby-doll shoves her feet at me, I had better start rubbing them.”

  She giggled. “I love you so much.”

  His expression turned serious. “Do you really mean that, Celeste?”

  She pulled her feet away from him, under herself, and sprang across the couch at him. “I must not say it enough: I love you.” She kissed his cheek. “I love you; I love you; I love you.” She punctuated each statement with another kiss. Then they held their position, so close their noses almost touched. “You believe me, now?”

  He nodded. “I sure am in love with you.”

  She felt goose bumps and a delightful shiver down her back. She kissed him tenderly. “Why the sad look?” she asked, afterwards.

  “I"m afraid of blowing it,” he said.

  She tweaked his ear playfully. “You probably will. We both will, more than once. But I promise to forgive you…if you apologize real good.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Me too. But the apology needs to be really good.”

  She poked at his ribs with both hands, making him jump with each tickle.

  “You sure are in a chipper mood today,” he remarked.

  She turned sideways and leaned against him, her head against his jaw. “You wanna be my man?” she asked.

  “Is that a real question, or are you paraphrasing Beatles lyrics?”

  “It"s a serious question, and I want a serious answer.”

  “Yes I do, Celeste. I want to be your man.”

  “Well, okay, then.” She closed her eyes and breathed deep.

  She felt his head turn with a snap of the neck.

  “What is it?”

  “We missed the sunset,” he said.

  She opened her eyes and followed the line of his gaze to the window. “It"s okay. You don"t have to watch it with me every night.”

  “Let"s get dressed and go outside for a minute,” he said.

  “But I"m comfortable right here,” she said, allowing her voice to take on a whining tone.

  “Humor me.”

  Once dressed, he led her by the hand outside, around the pool and deeper into the back yard.

  “Frank, what is this?”

  He stopped and faced her, looked up at the sky and back to her. Then he planted a soul kiss on her. They stood there and enjoyed a marathon makeout session under the darkening sky. When the sky turned so black that the moon and stars came out, he finally let her mouth go.

  “That was nice,” she panted. “But couldn"t we have done it inside on the couch?”

  “I wanted to kiss you under the milky twilight,” he said, simply.

  She felt the smile start all the way down in her heart before flowing up to tighten her face. “Our song.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Our song.”

  “Now that was romantic,” she said. “I give you an A Plus for that one.”

  “Thank-you Miss Turcotte.”

  “Now write, „I will always be this romantic" 100 times on the chalkboard, Mr. Cozzalino.”

  “Before we go back in, Celeste, I want to tell you something. Ask you something.”

  “Which one?”

  “Just listen: I"ve been thinking a lot about what we talked about the other day. I want to be around you every day like this. Would you be willing to move in together?”

  She hadn"t seen this one coming. Not this soon, anyway.

  “Are you ready to take a step like that?” she asked, caressing his arms.

  “You promised to forgive me when I screw up, right?”

  “I did, didn"t I?”

  “Then I"m ready to take this step.”

  “But you have to apologize really good,” she teased him.

  “I"ll do the best I can.”

  “If we"re officially living together,” she said, “I"m going to use phrases like „our house" and „our car". Because they will be.”

  “I"ve been thinking about that, too,” he said. “I think I want to hear you talk like that.”

  She threw her arms around him. “Then let"s go back in our house, raid our fridge, get in ourshower and celebrate.”

  EPILOGUE

  Miles burst into the waiting room, dressed in guest scrubs, and yanked down his mask.

  “We got ourselves another girl!”

  Frank"s eyes came fully open and he shifted upright on the hard-backed seat. Celeste, on her side nearly in a fetal position to fit between the random arm rests, her head in Frank"s lap, stirred at the movement.

  “She"s out?”

  Miles nodded, eyes bulging. “I got to hold her. She"s tiny! Ugly too, but the doctor says that"s normal until their faces fill out. I can"t believe you guys fell asleep. We were
hardly in there any time at all. Shauna squirted her right out like she was made to do this. She"s like a perfect baby factory!”

  Frank gently squeezed Celeste"s shoulder. “Wake up, baby. It"s over. Came out fine, sounds like.”

  Celeste"s eyes fluttered open and she sat up. “The baby"s here?” she asked, her voice scratchy with sleep.

  “Can we see it, yet?” Frank asked.

  “Come on,” Miles said, “They cleaned her up, and as soon as they gave her to Shauna, she stopped crying. They"re moving them to the inpatient room, now.”

  They found the room, and Celeste, wide awake now, beat both of the men inside. Shauna looked a little bloated and fatigued, but happy, laying back on the bent bed. In her arms was a tiny little bundle with a yellowish head.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” she called, weakly, to Celeste.

  “Let „em see,” Miles told his woman.

  Shauna carefully rotated the delicate little package until they could see the prune-like miniature face.

  “Celeste; Frank,” Shauna said, “meet Monica.”

  “Hi Monica!” Celeste greeted. “She"s beautiful.”

  A nurse stepped into the room. “You"ll have to clear out, now. Mom needs her rest. You"ll be able to see them during normal visiting hours.”

  Frank shook Miles" hand. Celeste gave him a warm hug and said, “Congratulations, dad.”

  Once back in the car, Celeste reached over from the passenger seat to take Frank"s free hand. “They made it, didn"t they?”

  “Made what?” Frank asked.

  “Snap out of it, Frank.They"re a real family. They"re making it work. You"d never know Miles didn"t want the pregnancy by the way he was acting today.”

  “Just wait „til he sees the hospital bill,” Frank said.

  “None of that cynical talk,” she reminded him.

  “Sorry.”

  Frank drove them into the suburbs, to the gated community where they now lived. Both had sold their houses and bought a new four bedroom, three bath home together. They had finished moving in and thrown a housewarming party two months ago.

  The garage door opened and Frank pulled the Mustang inside next to Celeste"s Cobalt. The engine stopped and the garage door rumbled closed behind them. Celeste groaned to get Frank"s attention as he got out.